Ultimate Pleasures

part one of an article

I'm lost within the explosion ... slow-motion firecrackers bursting in my pelvis, shooting up my body and traveling down my legs. I'm lost in a black, open space, as if I'm removed from my body, heavy, with no arms or legs ... elevated for moments to this nice, eternal place. ...

--- Emily

For every woman, it's different. And different each time she makes love, with each orgasmic experience.

Female orgasm is neither a fragile nor a difficult experience. After all, orgasmic response is a natural physiological function. But all too often, that natural response is blocked by inhibition or by simple lack of knowledge.

In the past two decades, female orgasm has become a central issue in human sexuality. Feminists have supported a woman's right to pleasure in sex. Sociologists have charted the statistical frequency of orgasm. The 1983 Playboy Readers' Sex Survey found that for men and women, female orgasm had become the criterion by which we judged the success of the sex act. Yet the results of several studies indicate that perhaps 50 percent of women do not regularly reach orgasm. The work of researchers doesn't always translate to the bedroom.

For our study of female orgasm, we weren't interested in how many---we were interested in how. And how in actual life, not in statistics or in the laboratory. We sought out women who were already easily orgasmic and asked them to talk to us about how they got that way and how they help assure that they will be orgasmic with partners. "A dear friend or close sister asks your help," we said. "She has a reasonably desirable partner but has difficulty achieving orgasm. What specific advice can you give her?" Their answers constitute a guidebook to contemporary female sexuality.

Of course, their advice isn't just for women. To be orgasmic when making love, all women need a considerate partner. Male readers will benefit from reading this article and the sequel to be published next month.

Easily orgasmic was defined as able to reach orgasm during at least 75 percent of sexual contacts and describes consistency or reliability, not rapidity, in reaching orgasm. Our criterion simply required achieving orgasm during sexual contact, whether through intercourse alone, intercourse assisted by other stimuli, other stimuli alone or any combination of the above.

The average woman in this study is orgasmic in more than 90 percent of her sexual contacts with a partner. However, she didn't acquire that ability overnight. On the average, two years elapsed between her first intercourse and her becoming easily orgasmic during lovemaking. Yet if a woman is sexually active, it needn't take that long. Many women expressed the hope that by sharing their intimate knowledge, they could help less-orgasmic women and their partners save time and heartache---and even help orgasmic women renew or expand their pleasure.

For most of the women in this study, becoming orgasmic on an easy, consistent basis involved forming their sexual identities, learning specific skills and then freely using those skills---all as part of growing and maturing. All of the women gave answers that consistently centered on three principles.

The first is to accept oneself---body, mind and genitals. Harriet is a social worker, a large, gentle woman from a Methodist and Nazarene background:

"We argued over sex the first few years we were married," she said. "My husband talked sex in the middle of sex---which made me feel guilty and totally wrecked my feelings. And he wanted to experiment, try new positions---I wasn't gung ho for any of it. I thought that sex was hormones; you had them of you didn't....

"It helped when we moved to Texas, away from my relatives. I didn't fear someone walking in, though certain exciting things, like anal stimulation, still caused guilty feelings. But then, as I talked with other women and got free of taboos, we could discuss our sexuality. I learned that I could set up a mood and ask for what felt good to me, and the more I applied my mind, the more I'd get out of sex."

Sometimes, early guilts can be turned to sexual advantage. Dorothy, a peppery redhead from a Catholic family, was nonorgasmic with her husband through her first several years of marriage. "I was always Miss Goody Two-shoes as a kid. So---wow!---when I discovered, when I was lying on top of him, that when he put his hand under the back of my panty hose and started pulling them down ... I don't know what happens to my head, but that almost gives me an orgasm right there. Maybe that goes back to when I was a kid and first played around with sex. Back then, it would have made me feel guilty and stopped me, but now I let it arouse me. I've turned that into a positive thing. If someone takes my pants down, it really turns me on!"

Many women experience a fear of their normal bodily sensations. Constance, a factory worker, is a pert, outgoing redhead in her early 30s. "I never masturbated, and I didn't understand the sensations. It was two years after my first intercourse that I reached the first orgasm I ever had in my life---I actually saw colors, collapsed on him and cried because I was scared. After that, I was always orgasmic; I became more aggressive, if you will, and made sure I got on top. I thought, I am going to experience this more often. There is nothing wrong with it; it's wonderful. Anything this good, there's got to be a way of repeating. I never feared orgasms once I understood what they were."

Accepting oneself includes accepting one's body, with its flaws and imperfections. Darcie, 31, is divorced. ("He always thought he was right, period---he even redid my laundry!") After her divorce, she had a quick orgasm with the first man she dated. "Right at that point, I said to myself, 'If this can be so wonderful, so beautiful, and I just met this fellow, what have I been doing all these years?' And I said to myself, 'There's someone else in there who wants to get out, and I'm going to let her out!'"

She described her ritual for loving: "When I'm nude and alone in the bedroom, I will look myself up and down in the mirror. Now, I wish I had a bigger bust, and maybe I'm on the slender side--- maybe some men don't like that. But I say to myself, 'Darcie, don't just look at your body, look at yourself as a person, look at your personality.' And I find the best parts of my body, sexy hollows and curves."

Many of these women still face "unfinished business," yet nearly all suggested that strides toward self-acceptance are a necessary prelude to becoming easily orgasmic. Through trust in her husband's pleasure, Meredith learned how to accept her vagina---and all her sexual fluids---as a "normal, natural, human bodily thing," a source not of odor but of fragrance.

Other women had similar experiences. "I finally liked my pussy," said Cheryl. "You have to be able to touch yourself, be comfortable with your body, with excitement and sensuous feelings."

The second principle is to let it be---to allow one's pleasure to happen. According to the women in the study, it's up to them to obtain their own orgasms---if not entirely, then equally with their partners. "He can stimulate me all he wants," said Linda, "and if I'm not in the mood, nothing is going to happen. Since the woman's orgasm is different, it's her responsibility to let go, to let her body be receptive to having one."

We asked the women, Do you ever make a conscious decision to go for orgasm and then feel it's right to use your partner's body to obtain it? Despite our strong wording, 93 percent said yes:

"I establish my own body rhythm before orgasm and think of satisfying myself only."

"Sure, just like he's using mine. It's part of his commitment as a sex partner."

"We both do---that's what it's all about, pleasing each other."

"When I acknowledge to my brain that I'm going for orgasm, it's my take-over and very easy."

"Just before, when you know there's no turning back, going for it is of prime importance."

"When I have sex, I've already made the decision to have an orgasm; but 'use your partner's body' sounds selfish. It's self-evident---but I'm not exploiting my lover."

Dorothy expressed a number of these points: "I couldn't find the right combination. My idea of being good in bed was making him feel good---forgetting all about me. Or if I was trying to achieve an orgasm, that was all I thought of. Then I finally realized that turning myself on turns him on, and it's OK to enjoy it, and it's OK to position yourself right, and it's OK to tell somebody what feels good and what doesn't. I realized I was 90 percent of it."

But the third principle---surrendering to nature---may well be the key. Ingrid is 31 and married, a slightly plump blonde with mischievous eyes. "My parents were strict," she said, "but we kids were loners, and we sort of raised ourselves, pretty much outside the home. And somewhere I got the attitude that you have to pleasure yourself first; if it feels good, it must be OK. Before we married, I had lots of orgasms with my husband from petting. Amazing! At first, I thought you had to be married to have orgasms! I was a virgin on our wedding night, but I came all over the place from intercourse, nice and natural....

"In the middle of intercourse, I don't have fears or doubts; I don't fight anything about it, and just before my climax, I concentrate on sensations. It's a free feeling, an abandonment.... Enjoy, relax and go with it."

Abandoning oneself to sensation was the one essential that every woman mentioned. (continued on page 174) Ultimate Pleasures (continued from page 136)

However practiced her technique or focused her effort, at the golden moment, the easily orgasmic woman rarely strives for orgasm. Instead, if she "works" for anything, she works to build her sensation---bigger, stronger and deeper, enveloping all of her being---and then lest herself go.

I had to accept doing it my way.

---Nora

For a woman to become easily orgasmic, it is essential for her to experience, recognize and accept her own sexual style. Every woman has personal patterns of emotional, mental and physical stimulation that she aesthetically prefers and finds most effective in bringing her to orgasm.

Nora, a single woman in her early 30s, has a slight but sturdy body and a raconteur's gift of gab. She teaches mentally handicapped adults. Her father died when Nora was in her early teens, leaving a family of five children, of whom Nora is the middle one. Her willingness to participate in the research project stemmed from her mother's recent revelation that, even within a loving marriage of 17 years' duration, she had never been orgasmic.

Nora's early ideas about sexuality (you pray to heaven for babies) came from nuns at a Catholic school; at the onset of menstruation, her mother took a hand in her education. Nora recalled:

"Right then and there, she said, 'I'd better tell you about sex. You know a boy has a penis,' and she explained it, putting it very simply. 'And the man puts his penis inside the woman, they make love,' all very basic, and I looked at her and said, 'I don't believe you.' She said, 'Well, it's true.' And I said, 'I can't believe people do that!' I guess it was because I was so old by the time I learned anything that it was a shock. But her attitude was real positive and conveyed the fact that it was all very normal."

However "normal," intercourse was proper only in marriage; so Nora concentrated on friendship and intellectual development, kissing a boy for the first time on her 16th birthday. Describing herself as "very organized" about sex, in her early 20s she decided that if by the age of 25 she was not yet married, she would have intercourse anyway. She masturbated for the first time at the age of 23. "It was the neatest feeling, and then the fascination that this information was in my body and I'd never utilized it---wow!"

As she approached her 24th birthday, Nora began to suspect that virginity was an overrated pleasure.

"I decided to have sex and conned a girlfriend into giving me a month's prescription of birth-control pills in time to be covered on New Year's Eve. I had a date for New Year's with someone I liked very much, a nice guy and good friend. I knew he would try, and, poor man, unbeknown to him, I just let him go ahead. The minute he entered me, I burst into tears and he said, 'What's the matter? What's the matter?' and I said, 'I'm not a virgin anymore,' and he said, 'Oh, no! Oh, no! Nora, how could you let me do this to you?' and I said, 'No, I wanted you to.' Anyway, that was how I had sex the first time. I would advise anyone to wait as I did, because it was my decision; I was ready. I didn't feel pressure and I didn't feel guilt.

"My body goes extremely rigid when I orgasm. Yet men suggested that I should orgasm certain ways---such as with my legs in the air. It was not only not my style, it was not practical, but I tried for a year or two, and maybe I almost came that way once or twice, until I decided they were wrong. I was so worried about how I was 'supposed' to do it, it was taking away the pleasure. I think that's very important for women, because I've met a couple who have said something comparable, and my advice is always the same: You have to get your partner to understand how you're going to enjoy it, and he's got to let you do it your way.

"If I want to come during intercourse, I have to control it by getting myself in a particular position, basically on my back, and sort of shuffle my partner around to where it's comfortable and feels good. I can't imagine letting some man have sex with me in whatever way he wanted and not really doing anything---I probably wouldn't come. And once I start to orgasm, I have to just let myself go. Sometimes I'm into it deeply enough to have two or there more quickly."

Sexuality is an ongoing, changing experience. At the time of our interviews, few women were the same sexually as they had been three or five years previously, and many expressed hopes and goals for the future---to be more open, to experiment more, to explore their desires and fantasies, to integrate sex better into a stable relationship.

In addition to recognizing and accepting her current---and possibly only momentary---sexual style, an easily orgasmic woman usually finds a means of communicating her changing preferences to partners. Sometimes a woman's understanding of herself runs counter to her perceptions of prevailing wisdom; in this event, most easily orgasmic women have learned to trust themselves, though not without some difficulty and temporary confusion.

"I learned over time that that's so important for me, thinking about making love," said Lisa. Whether minutes, hours or days in advance of a sexual encounter, she prepares herself mentally. "No matter how experienced my partner, if I'm not ready, nothing is going to happen. And now, partly because I've had the same partner for what I consider a long time, nearly seven years of dating and marriage, I have to build up to it and concentrate--- and we have to work at getting each other aroused."

Lisa usually sees brief mental images of herself and her husband together, intertwined with close-up images of her body. She also generates a variety of fantasies, "including behaviors I wouldn't do," and a number of roles, some outwardly acted and others purely imagined.

As to her personal sexual style: "Basically, no matter what my behavior or role is, how bizarre or conservative or whatever, I always tell myself deep down inside, 'It's good, it's natural, it's right' or 'It feels good, it's got to be right.' It is right, and I don't care what anybody thinks! Whatever I like is perfectly right."

And does that extend to her mind as well? Is a woman healthy and sexually normal if her mind is erotically active while she makes love with a partner?

Until recent years, therapists treating women for psychological problems conceived and formed the bulk of our ideas, both popular and professional, concerning erotic mental activity. Freud stated, "We can begin by saying that happy people never make phantasies, only unsatisfied ones," and psychoanalysts felt, for example, that fantasy, perhaps prompted by fear of the penis, was used by a woman in sex to distance herself from her partners. Small wonder the view was negative, particularly when the activity arose while the woman---usually suffering relational problems---was making love with a partner. We now realize that a majority of woman have fantasies or other mental images during sexual relations. In recent years, a number of sex-therapy programs designed to help a woman become more orgasmic have also discarded the notion that mental activity during sex is harmful. Women are encouraged to use fantasy, or any reasonable source of erotic mental excitement, freely to heighten their sexual pleasure.

And then there are the women in our study. Before and throughout the sexual encounter, they exhibit a startling range and depth of erotic mental activity. Judging from the results of our study, a woman whose mind is erotically active while she makes love with a partner is not only healthy and normal---she is likely to be orgasmic.

There is, of course, a natural, adaptive purpose to erotic mental activity. It assists a woman's own sexual arousal and, thus, facilitates orgasm.

A woman's assisting her own arousal does not mean that she prefers to be into herself. On the contrary, an easily orgasmic woman is fully engaged while making love and is highly aware of her partner, his pleasure and responses. Nevertheless, she must have the freedom, both physical and psychological, to initiate and enhance her own sexual arousal.

During lovemaking, she accepts her erotic thoughts as stemming from her deepest sexuality and enjoys them at will or generates more---as long as they enhance pleasure.

Mimi described her relationship with an early lover: "Once I began experiencing orgasm with him, I was a little disappointed. I had been expecting 'Poooow!'---ultra-explosion from the inside out. Instead, I learned that I have jerky legs, and my body really twitches! But in time, I learned my body's need for a lot of clitoral touching, and I let my partners know it. My past few affairs have been very good, very intense and orgasmic." Mimi also employs a repertoire of mental stimuli. "I can see and do 'D---All of the above'!" she said. "It may sound artificial or contrived, but it's really not. It's interesting, kind of creative for me. It's very easy to just have a sexual experience, just screw, and I can do that; but there's an art to being sexual or sensuous, and it's not simply taking your clothes off. There's a lot of mental work and attitude involved.

"I like experiencing things fully in my life, and I don't like mediocre experiences. I like to bring sex out of the mundane and make it thrilling and exciting. You've got to be creative every day. Energy begets energy. The more passionate you act, the more passionate you'll feel."

In a sense, easily orgasmic women resemble creative artists. If only for the briefest of moments, while making love with a partner, they weave a spell of body and mind to create a joyous experience.

Kristin, in her early 30s, is a psychotherapist who counsels physically ill patients in a private hospital. Her face has a pleasing Eurasian cast---gray almond-shaped eyes that half close when she smiles---and her body is large-boned and physically fit, but she's aware of her vulnerabilities. "I've always had a problem with my body, in terms of loving myself. I have a vision of what is beautiful and I don't fit that vision---bigger breasts, longer legs, slimmer, more delicate."

She has lived abroad for many years, acquiring a soft English accent. In England, she completed the equivalent of a doctorate in psychology, then worked several years as a group therapist and student-placement counselor before marrying her husband (from whom she is currently separated). She has two children.

"I was raised as a Presbyterian, rather strictly, and I received a clear message that one does not screw until married. I was close to Mother, though we did not closely communicate, and I had fights with my father, who was usually a mild man. I was both dependent and independent, occasionally a trifle rebellious---perhaps I was shedding my parents before I realized. I went abroad to study at the age of 18, scared but quickly adjusting.

"My first affair with a man was in Italy. I met him on a train. He was beautiful, a medical student. When the train stopped at Florence, he offered me his apartment in Bologna, a distance away. It was romantic, wonderful, exactly as I had pictured it. He was good, considerate, manipulated well, and I came to appreciate him as a person. That night---or day---I came the first time, within a span of eight hours from the time we began to make love. We saw each other for two or three years, weeks at a time, in England or Italy. He was my most significant sexual partner, experienced, a doctor. I knew he wouldn't hurt me, and I trusted him completely. I had the full course---oral sex, anal intercourse and physical relations with women.

"I'm also a great and avid reader, and when I started becoming sexually active, I read every book I could find, because I wanted to be good in bed. I wanted to know what to do and not to do, because my mother certainly didn't tell me about oral or anal sex. As I learned and then was able to do these things with partners---to feel more proficient and comfortable---then, certainly, my ability to be orgasmic became greater. And my ability to enjoy became greater when I felt that not only could I receive but I could give. Maybe a lot of effort was put into being orgasmic, though I'd not thought about it and had never planned it that way. But now it's easier, simply because one is more relaxed.

"If I care for a person, if I feel something, I can become quite orgasmic even with someone who is not very adept sexually. I can also be quite orgasmic with someone who's very good sexually but for whom I have little intimate feeling; then, however, I have to use a lot more of my own creativity to bring pleasure about. But in any relations with a partner, if I want to be orgasmic, it's up to me to create a blend of mental and physical pleasure."

Before an evening when I'll probably make love, I'll try a dress rehearsal in my mind. I know where I want to get, the end result---in the bed under the covers, with the little light on. ---Rita

When easily orgasmic women think about making love, hours or minutes in advance of a sexual encounter, their thoughts may be only thoughts---vague feelings or ideas without specific words or pictures consciously attached. Usually, these thoughts are of a positive nature and assist sexual arousal by reinforcing the endearing or positive qualities of a partner or a situation. "I review whether I trust the person," said one woman, "and then try to think positive thoughts about him."

However, most "thoughts" are actually mental images or have the effect of producing mental images. As another woman stated, "When I say thought, I am talking about mental pictures---my thoughts always create them."

Most of us normally think of mental images as visual experiences. But mental images may also be auditory, recalling or imagining sounds and words, or kinesthetic, recalling or imagining touch, movement, feeling or sensation. We have chosen to call their activity imaging. Preparatory imaging takes place before a woman has physical contact with a partner or, in some instances, during the early phases of lovemaking.

For an easily orgasmic woman, the toilette can be a time of relaxation and isolation, of focusing on lovemaking, of shedding the outside world and directing her thoughts and energies toward the pleasures of making love.

She begins to build her sexual confidence and to sexually arouse herself. In effect, she begins to make love well before the physical encounter.

Kate, in her early 30s, is a sales representative for an office-equipment manufacturer. She has short, dark hair and moves with the light, fluid strength of a dancer---which, for several years, she was. Kate has learned how to be consistently orgasmic with a partner. "And I've learned that I can have multiples with oral sex or if a penis strokes my vagina just right, along the side walls and slowly."

Kate takes special care with her grooming and bath. "When I'm going out, I pamper myself. I enjoy a change of dress from the everyday suit I wear to the office. The biggest thrill for me is when my children are sleeping out, and maybe it's a special occasion. I soak in the tub, and I light the candles and I take my wine in, and I do the whole bit. I scrub and perfume and touch myself from head to toe. I work myself over, and I exercise. I take pleasure in the feelings of my body.

"By the time my date picks me up, I feel so good about myself that even if he doesn't desire me, I desire me!"

Darcie prepares in a similar way. "When I'm going out," she said, "I want to look sensuous and sexy. Right then and there, I get a natural high and really begin to get into it.

"As I'm getting ready, I try to isolate myself in the bathroom and the bedroom. It's not always easy when the kids are there, but I try; and on weekends, they often sleep at my mother's. First I wash my hair, then I take a nice bath. Usually, I'm not thinking about sex yet, but I know that after my bath, after I get my hair done, those thoughts will come.

"Then I close my bedroom door. I put music on, which is very soothing, and it removes me from my everyday pattern. It's a way of concentrating---you have to make the effort. I'm standing before the mirror, nude. I go through my wardrobe and hold things up or try them on, how this view looks, how that view looks. I'll take the bras.... All of this is arousing.

"I touch my body. I'm very sensitive on my breasts, my nipples, so that all it takes is a light touch to get myself started. I don't usually masturbate before I go out---because I wouldn't stop. I'd never make dinner at eight.

"As I'm dressing, I get myself excited. I have to go to the bathroom several times. The anticipation grows. I have gone through all the steps, established the mood before I even walk out the door, and it carries me through the evening. I'm ready for my sexual encounter."

Many easily orgasmic women begin to communicate with their partners about sexual intentions far in advance of the physical encounter---with a letter, a telephone call, a glance.

Said Dominique, "A lot of times, if I have to go somewhere, I'll leave him a little note. Sometimes I just say 'Be ready tonight' and perfume it, or leave a sheet from a prescription pad for the 'best medicine'---it has little pictures on it of a man and a woman making love. Or sometimes we'll mark our sexual-position book and leave it in the bathroom or on the bed, with a little note---'Try this tonight?'"

Such private messages allow a woman to anticipate the sexual encounter, to focus on her desire and arouse herself. The act of conveying her own intentions and knowing that they contribute to her partner's excitement is also highly arousing.

In the past, the type of erotic preparation these women reported has frequently been treated as fantasizing. But getting ready for sex has many shadings. It's different for each woman. Let's listen:

"I can intentionally do this before I go out---do a visual run-through of a book like Lady Chatterley's Lover. My intent is to heighten my feelings."

"Sometimes, before I make love, I'll picture myself on the beach in the Bahamas, relaxed and warm. I try to recapture the tranquil atmosphere."

"Occasionally, I think about other men---sex with them---before making love with my husband. It arouses me for him. I visualize the scene, and that recalls the sensations. I get very moist. I lubricate thinking about it."

Meredith is a woman who once demanded an hour to get in the mood and then learned how to arouse herself in minutes. "I regularly get this picture, both beforehand and while I'm making love. It's like a movie, and I see a lot of simultaneous shots---all of penises. They're sort of floating around, and then one comes into focus---and I feel it. It's not a 'person,' but there is that feeling, the sensation. And then there's motion to it, so I feel the rhythmic in and out ... and all this can happen before he penetrates."

Alfred Kinsey and his colleagues, in Sexual Behavior in the Human Female, found that the "average" woman had fewer general sexual fantasies---those not necessarily connected to a sexual encounter---than did men. He speculated that this might contribute to the fact that males are usually more aroused "before the beginning of a sexual relationship and before they have made any physical contact with the female partner." (In that research, Kinsey did not investigate mental activity during sexual relations.)

We have found that easily orgasmic women, particularly during a sexual encounter but also before it, experience a substantial---if not an enormous---amount of sexual fantasy or, more broadly, erotic mental activity. Of the 60 women in our study, 56 reported that, at least sometimes, they consciously prepare for sexual encounters, either physically or mentally. Physical preparation, naturally, also generates mental arousal---when Darcie or Kate prepares herself and focuses on the anticipated sexual experience, she is also creating mental stimulation. Interestingly, the four women who reported no conscious preparation for sexual encounters described, at other stages of the interview, preparatory images or thoughts. The willingness to arouse herself before sex when she so desires may be one of the characteristics that distinguish an easily orgasmic woman from a less-orgasmic one.

In any event, preparation for a sexual encounter, whether it be physical or mental, whether it fosters concentration or relaxation, whether it bolsters a woman's sexual confidence or stimulates her nearly to orgasm, serves one natural purpose. It allows a woman to begin her sexual encounters in a state of arousal, enhancing the likelihood that she will enjoy the sexual experience and will be orgasmic with a partner.

And here are two last preparatory images, strongly linked with pleasurable and arousing sensations. Both are from Nora, the woman who learned how to make love her way:

"It's not a person. I prefer the picture without a face that I know. It's like ... if I were to close my eyes and just wait for some mysterious hand to come out and touch me. I remember times when that picture has flashed in my mind, like a form of déjà vu, when I must be reminded of something. And all by myself, I can get totally aroused by thinking about how exciting it would be. It's not a fantasy, because it's not like I try to pull in a face or situation. Sometimes, I can place it---I can remember a sexual experience and put a face on it---but then I really prefer to block the face, because a specific person almost takes the feeling away.

"And if I've made love the night before, but I didn't come because I had too much to drink, or for whatever reason, usually in the morning I really want an orgasm. I'm focused on it, and I will start thinking about coming, the sensation and total excitement. Even if my partner's not quite awake, I want him to touch me and touch me now. I build, tell myself I'm excited---sometimes it's almost a little verbal---and think of how exciting it would be. I imagine that he just leans over and touches me, or the slightest thing, and then I get more detailed in my thoughts. I imagine him touching my clitoris or putting his finger up me.... I'll just focus, and then---if he merely touches my breasts---I go off like an alarm clock."

In touch with their moods, sexually confident and already aroused, easily orgasmic women "start on warm" when they enter a sexual encounter.

And now the curtain rises. Within the sexual encounter itself, an easily orgasmic woman begins by paying attention....

Next month: What easily orgasmic women look for in a lover.