EPISODE 77: Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Orgasms

You do deserve to have a fair and equal and pleasurable and satisfying experience. You deserve to have an orgasm each and every single time that you want an orgasm.

Preach.

Hello, and welcome to the Pillow Talks podcast. We're your hosts, Vanessa and Xander Marin. I'm a sex therapist with over 20 years of experience.

And I'm just a regular dude. We share the ups and downs of our relationship while giving you step by step techniques for improving yours.

Make sure you subscribe for your weekly double date full of totally doable sex tips, practical relationship advice, hilarious and honest stories of what really goes on behind closed bedroom doors, and so much more. It's the sex education you wish you'd had. I was just asking Zander if he had any great ideas for how to open up this episode, and he told me that I could just fake an orgasm throughout the intro. But I think since you have never had the experience of faking an orgasm. Correct.

Yes, correct.

And I have faked plenty. Maybe you should be the one to fake an orgasm in this intro.

Oh, yes, this episode. Oh, yes. I can't wait for this long, hard episode of that orgasm. I had to do that twice because I clipped the shit out of it the first time. So if you're hearing me now, it means our editor deftly edited together a couple versions of that faked orgasm that weren't horribly redlined orgasm. I mean, that's my. My fake orgasm. Start to this podcast episode about orgasm.

That's really weird.

Oh, I'm coming. That's the best I can do, people.

Those are both disgusting in different ways.

I actually. I don't really know, like, how I orgasm. I don't know if I can fake my own orgasm because it just kind of happens. I don't really. I've never really considered. Well, the one thing I do consider is that often I. When I'm having a really excellent orgasm, I will realize that I am possibly screaming in Vanessa's ear. And so then I'll. Then I will consider the fact that I might be blowing her eardrums out.

Or you got squirted. As a loyal Pillow Talks listener will remember the I got squirted story.

But.

That was truly heinous. I was trying to be easy on you. I was saying, like, you don't have to fake your own orgasm. Don't try to fake my orgasm. Just like, fake, fake, unorgasm.

Well, I'm sure someone's orgasm sounded like one that I did.

I can't wait for this orgasm. I don't think anybody's orgasm Sounds like that.

All right.

I truly hope not.

Fair.

So today we are talking about orgasms. We put out a call on Instagram for, like, what are your most pressing, your most interesting, your most challenging climax questions? And we are doing a whole orgasm themed episode.

Vulva. Orgasm themed vulva.

Orgasm themed episode.

So that actually disqualifies me from faking an orgasm at the beginning. So maybe it was just a bad idea to start with. Sorry, everyone.

Thanks to Green Chef for sponsoring pillow talks. Green Chef is the number one meal kit for eating well with dinners that work for you, not the other way around. Go to greenchef.com pillow599 and use code PILLOW599 to get 5.99 per meal on your first box. And your first box ships free.

Sorry, everyone, but what I can do instead is just launch straight into this week's review of the week and you.

Don'T have to fake it with this babe.

I don't have to fake it because someone actually wrote this review for us. You won't regret listening. This is time well spent. Hmm. Is it? Is it really?

You don't think our podcast is time well spent?

The intro I just did is not particularly time.

Maybe I'll make you re record it.

Yeah. All right. This is the best podcast I've ever listened to, and I have been missing.

Out the best podcast you've ever listened to. What a compliment.

I know.

This is the first and only podcast I've ever listened to, but it's the best.

I love following their content on Instagram and at the same time, I have to say the podcast has given me the best and most actionable advice. Vanessa and Xander have turned me into a podcast listener and I couldn't thank them even more. So we might be the first. It's possible that we are the best and only podcast this person, but I will take it. No, we definitely. We do hear from people that say, I've never listened to a podcast before. And I listened to your podcast and I loved it. And I was like, hell yeah. Welcome to the world of podcasts. I appreciate how open and vulnerable they are. Heart. The topics they talk about are truly life changing. You won't regret listening. Wow.

Thank you for this delightful review. If you are not familiar with the world of podcasting, then you may not know that reviews are huge with podcasts. Honestly, this is something I didn't really understand myself before we created a podcast. But reviews are the best way to help the podcast grow. Like if a podcast has a lot of reviews, Apple and Spotify and all the other podcast platforms will display display it more often. And people are also more likely to listen to a podcast if they see that it has a lot of reviews. So we would greatly appreciate you taking the time, like this, delightful listener to leave a quick little review. It doesn't have to be this long. It could honestly be like a sentence. This is a great podcast. I love it.

Just write, I got squirted.

Yes, you will definitely be picked as our review of the week. Or your review is just I got.

Squirted or I can't wait to have this orgasm in a fake orgasm voice voice. This is my faking orgasm voice.

Okay, so here's how you leave a review. Unfortunately, you can only leave reviews on Apple Podcasts. So you go to the main page, the Pillow Talks podcast page, scroll to the bottom and you'll see the space to leave like a star rating and write a little review. You can leave a star rating on Spotify, but Apple is the only way to enter our review of the week giveaway, which is that if you are picked as review of the week, then you can DM us on Instagram. Actually, by the time this podcast is going up, we might have our new Instagram handle.

We might.

We are. Okay, this is a little behind the scenes. Like, we are thinking of changing our Instagram handle to Vanessa and Xander. Currently, it's Vanessa Marin Therapy, and it has been for years because I started it when the business was just me. But it's been the two of us together for a long time and it's a big pain in the ass to change your Instagram handle. But I think we're just gonna do it so you can, if you're the winner, you can look for Find us on Instagram.

We're pretty easy to find. I think if you type in Vanessa and Xander on Instagram, you'll probably find us regardless of what our handle is.

Yeah, I think so. So anyways, if you're the winner, you can DM us and ask us a question and we will give you a personalized coaching session in return. So that's for winners of the review of the week giveaway. If you leave a review, you are entered into this giveaway every week going forward to just our little way of saying thank you for taking the time to leave a review.

Well, if you listen to our podcast a lot, you probably know that usually we have some stats from Instagram to give you at the beginning of every episode. This time we decided to do one better than that. We conducted. We had to go deeper, we had to go harder, longer.

Gross.

We couldn't stop. We couldn't stop asking people to respond to our State of the Orgasm survey. Oh, yes, that's right. That's right. We conducted our own research study. Perhaps you responded yourself. If you're listening, it's very likely. We asked people on Instagram to respond. We asked people on our email list to respond. We got over 5,000 responses from people. And, you know, we asked about a lot of stuff. So we're just going to talk about female orgasm here for this episode, but we found some really interesting stuff. And this mirrors, you know, what Vanessa has talked about for a very long time. It mirrors research that is already out there in the world. But, you know, sometimes it's important to just validate it yourself. Right? So, you know, it's coming from the horse's mouth here. So what we found.

You're the horse.

Yeah, I'm the horse. We're off to a great start.

You a reptile?

No. You're a newt and I'm a horse.

But you're hatching.

Yeah, I'm a hatchling horse.

A lot of inside jokes on this episode.

Wow, we are really off to a hot start.

Okay, I'll let you go.

You know, we're really serious. We do research here, people, and what we found, we found that. Okay, I can't. I can't deliver this line, like, while I'm laughing, because it's really serious. It's. I'm pulling it together, guys. All right. We had over 5,000 people respond. And, you know, we ask women and men how often they orgasm. 29% of women reported that they always orgasm when they have sex, versus 73% of men who always orgasm during sex.

44% gap. Yeah, 44%. I also do want to point out, like, we did the poll for non binary people as well. We wanted it to be as inclusive as possible, but we didn't get enough responses for it to be statistically significant.

Yeah, so we, yeah, we are. We are reporting only on data where we have enough data that we feel confident that we can actually report on this. And, yeah, so, like, when you hear people refer to the orgasm gap, that's literally what they are talking about.

44% gap.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, in reality, this will hold true with the other data I'm about to describe to you, but I think that when we poll our audience about this, the gap will actually be smaller than it is out in the world because, you know, you all have been following us for a While. And if you've been following us for a while, hopefully you have more confidence and more tools to advocate for yourself and get those orgasms more consistently.

Hopefully you know what we're talking about when we say Xander's hatching and I'm a newt.

Oh, yeah. Thank. Thanks. Thanks for bringing that back. Yeah. So, like, yeah, there was that 44% gap, and that was really just when we talk about always orgasming. But regardless of how often you orgasm, whether it's always, whether it's almost always, sometimes, whatever. 62% of women in our survey reported that their male partners have more orgasms than them. So no matter how you slice it, men are having more orgasms, it gets worse. Men overestimate how often their female partners orgasm, and on the flip side, they underestimate how infrequently they orgasm. So there's a perceptual issue as well. So 87% of men think that their female partner often or always orgasms, but in reality, only 77% of women that we surveyed actually report that they often or always orgasm during sex. So, yeah, so more men are thinking that their female partner is in this category, like, 10% more than really are. And then on the flip side, only 13% of men think that their female partner never or rarely orgasms. When in reality, 23% of women say that they fall into that category.

Another 10% gap.

Yeah. Of never. Yeah, of never or rarely orgasming. So very few men think that their partner just doesn't really orgasm, and way more in reality fall into that category. And on the flip side, almost 9 out of 10 men think that their female partner is, like, pretty much always or very often orgasming. And in reality, it's only, like, three quarters of women who actually report that they are in that category. So, yeah, it's kind of a double whammy. Women are having far fewer orgasms, but men don't realize that. So obviously there's a lot of work still left to be done when it comes to female orgasm.

So one of the many reasons why we wanted to do this episode specifically about orgasm is to celebrate the end of an era with this business. So actually, it's kind of interesting talking about changing our Instagram handle that's also the end of an era, the end of the Vanessa Marin era, and, like, really recognize. I mean, it's been you and I for a long time in the business, but it's just like, it's such a pain to change the, you know, the handles and the URLs and stuff like that.

Oh, yeah.

I mean, done it.

Yeah. I mean, it's like our website, VM Therapy, as of Right. We haven't switched that over. We actually.

That's so hard.

I know. We did. We did just purchase Vanessa and Xander.com. yeah, we own it.

We own it.

Thank goodness we bought it. No one, you know, no one with a lot of foresight tried to buy that and then ransom it to us. But we do own that. Maybe someday our main website will be over there too. But God, changing a website URL is also asking for trouble with Google.

So it's. Yeah, it's the changing of the guard. It's the end of an era. And we have another huge end of an era coming up, which is that we are closing down our flagship course, Finishing School. So if you have never heard me talk about finishing school, you may also want to go back and check out one of our OG podcast episodes, episode 11, which is where we talk about how I turned my own orgasm struggles because I could not have an orgasm with another person for almost 10 years. Really, really struggled with it, faked so many orgasms, had so many, you know, moments of feeling broken and ashamed and alone. And once I eventually figured it out for myself, I decided, like, I need to teach other this. I can't believe I suffered for so long and I had no resources. And so I created Finishing School, which is really, I think, the first course ever to like go through female orgasm step by step and tell you exactly what to do and when and how, and leading you through so many aspects of it. You know, understanding your mental and emotional blockages, the physical techniques, experience, exploring it on your own and with a partner, taking it to the next level. Finishing School is an orgasm course, but it's really actually like sexuality 101. Like there's so many components that are wrapped up in it and really help you create this incredible relationship with your body and your pleasure and your sexuality. So it's this amazing course and thousands of women have gone through it. It's been reviewed in major publications like Bustle, the Huffington Post, Glamour, all. You know, so many people have just loved this course and have said it's been life changing for them. It's been one of the proudest accomplishments of my life. It earned me the nickname the Orgasm Whisperer from buzzfeed. So it's just been really an incredible course and for many years, like, this was the main course in our business.

We paid all the bills, paid all.

The bills, helped us grow a team. It's just been A really integral part of my life, of our business for so many years.

Well, with all of that, Vanessa, then I think the million dollar question is obviously, why would we change what we're doing? Why would we stop selling finishing school?

So a lot of things kind of converged all around the same time. One is that we currently have like 20 courses that are available on our website and we've gotten feedback from people of like, this is really confusing. I don't know what to get. They all sound great, but I don't know where to start. And I get overwhelmed and I just leave the whole website and I don't even take any sort of steps.

Oh yeah. I mean, when it confuses me, one of the business owners, it confuses everyone on our team. You know, it's going to confuse someone who is not working for us full time and not intimately aware of, of what all of our stuff is. So I think that's kind of the first sign is we've been struggling for a while with just internally being like, oh my God, how do we manage all of this stuff? It's too much.

Especially with such a sensitive topic. We know it already takes a lot of courage and bravery for someone to come over to our website and start looking at the things that we offer. Like, we want it to feel like a fun and exciting experience, not overwhelming and intense.

Yeah, like just a nice easy journey. Like, oh, okay, cool. Here's where I start. All right, cool. Here's what I do next. There's what I do after that.

Another thing that we started really thinking about is like, we are interested in pretty much every aspect of relationships and sex. Like, you can throw any relationship and sex topic at Xander and I and we're like, okay, cool, we can talk about this, we can talk about that. Oh, we could create a course about this. Like, we're just really fascinated by these topics. But again, at the same time, it's like this overwhelm issue of, like, if we're talking about everything, then we just don't have the ability to like, go in depth on some really key areas. So we started. And especially as Xander got more and more involved in the business and we started creating content together, we started thinking like, gosh, we can't just be sex and relationships. Like, we have to carve out a specialty for ourselves, like a niche for ourselves. And we realized that the thing that really gets us the most fired up is helping couples keep the spark alive in long term relationships. And a lot of that is because this is our challenge too. Like We've been together almost 15 years in December and we've gone through our own ups and downs of like, yeah, how do we keep that spark alive?

But I think it's something that we do really, really well now.

We do. I'm like, should we give each other a high five right now? That's going to be so obnoxious on the podcast. But we do a great job. We feel like we've figured a lot of things out and we feel extra passionate about wanting to share this with you.

And as we've started, you know, expanding our offerings, doing stuff like the 30 day sex challenge, the 30 day connection challenge, some of our more technique based guides, we've really seen the impact that we can make on couples and keeping the spark alive in their relationship, keeping the spark alive in their sex life, just totally opening doors that people didn't know existed.

And the third reason why we've made this decision is looping back to the state of the orgasm findings that Xander was sharing with us earlier is like, we realized, you know, yes, we need to teach women the tools that they need to orgasm and we also need to teach partners too. So I know we were talking a lot about male female relationships and of course that's not every relationship. But we realized like, we want to teach about orgasm more from like a couple's perspective and making sure everybody has this information about how female orgasm really works. All this bs, all these myths and misinformation that we've been taught, like, this misinformation harms all of us. And it's not enough to just be teaching women, like, we want to teach everybody so that all relationships can be set up for success and prioritizing both partners pleasure and satisfaction.

Yeah, I mean, I think ideally in the future women learn how to orgasm before they are in a serious relationship with anybody. But the reality right now, we have so many people that don't know how to orgasm and get into relationships and get into difficult places in those relationships where they may be faking orgasms or they may be just kind of giving up on their own pleasure having one sided sex. And it's like we don't want to leave those people in the lurch. Like, we really, we want to recognize where we are at right now and try to try to work on this as a couple's issue rather than a personal issue.

So we wanted to share all of this with you guys just in the spirit of transparency. That's one of our company values. We want you to like understand the decisions that we make and why we're making them. And just to give you a heads up, if finishing school sounds interesting to you, if you're just hearing about it right now, or if you've been thinking about joining finishing school school for months or even years, because believe me, we get DMS all the time from women saying, like, I've been thinking about doing this for years now and I just haven't pulled the trigger. So if that is you, then definitely make sure to check it out. It's@vmtherapy.com howtoregasm we'll put the link in the show notes and the description and everything to make it easy for you, but make sure to look because we are closing the course at the beginning of December and it will be closed forever, I think. So to be clear, you will get lifetime access to the course. You can go through it at whatever pace you want. It will always be open. But we're not going to be letting any new students into the course past the beginning of December.

Yeah. And we're not going to be making updates to the course in the future.

Yeah, that was another one of the smaller reasons why we decided to close it down is I regularly update the content and it takes. I mean, it's a massive undertaking. I redo the whole course and I've done this multiple times. And we were gearing up to do another big rehaul and we had so much other stuff on our plate. And that was kind of another one of the reasons why we were like, you know what, there's just not the time to do this right now. But we don't want to keep selling a course if we're not going to be able to continually update it. So to be clear, the course is really incredible. Like, I just update it really for myself. Like, I feel good knowing, like, I'm going through. I'm like continually trying to make it the best that it can be. But it's a phenomenal course exactly as it is right now. So again, if you want to check it out, make sure to check it out. The doors are going to close. The course will be open forever, but you will not be able to get into it past next month. We are also offering a discount on it that we have never, ever done before. Honestly, it kind of terrifies me a little bit that we're offering it at this price, but we wanted to give an opportunity to some of those fence sitters who, you know, for financial reasons, may not have been able to sign up for the course before it's A really significant discount. So we hope you get a chance to check it out. But what we're going to do for the rest of the episode is get into your orgasm questions.

Yeah. Because we're not stopping talking about female orgasm.

We're not going to stop talking about orgasm. I mean, this is one of my favorite topics. It's always going to be near and dear to my heart. It's just that this opportunity, this really incredible and special opportunity for exploring it is not going to be available, you know, in a couple more weeks. So we wanted to give it a little send off, a little celebration. Again, just wanted to share the background with you for the sake of transparency, but we're going to get into some of those, like, more nitty gritty, really detailed and specific orgasm questions. Before we go any further, we want to tell you a little bit more about Green Chef. We have been partnering with Green Chef for a few months now, so we've gotten a lot of food from them.

And we love it.

We love it. Xander actually ordered us more Green Chef. So we get. They send us some stuff to try it out. So we make sure that we like it. But we liked it so much that we like pay our own money to get Green Chef.

We ordinate on the side.

We do. We really like it. So this week I think our favorite meal was probably that pork tenderloin with like ginger broccoli. The citrus slaw. Yeah, it was really, really good.

It was tasty. I wish I had a double portion.

Oh, a double portion.

I mean for leftovers.

Oh, for left. I thought you might. You want to eat like double in one sitting.

No, I know the portion. The portion was perfect. I just wish I had another portion for another meal.

So you can go to greenchef.com pillow599 and use code PILLOW599 to get 599 per meal on your first box. And your first box ships free. So another thing that is coming down the pipeline is that Green chef is now 10 minute lunches. So we have not tried these yet, but we're pretty excited to check it out. These are great for like when you're on the go, you're pressed for time. And one other thing that we love about Green Chef is that you can customize it to your dietary needs. We are both gluten free eaters, so this works really well for us. We get multiple options every week that we can choose from. So it's not like there's like the one gluten free meal per week, like the sad little Gluten free thing? No, there's multiple options and they also have other diets like keto and paleo, vegan, vegetarian, vegetarian, Mediterranean. Like all kinds of different ways that you can filter the meals of the week. So Green Chef is the number one meal kit for eating well with dinners that work for you, not the other way around. Go to greenchef.com pillow599 and use code PILLOW599 to get $5.99 per meal on your first box. And your first box ships free.

So let's get real basic. Vanessa. How do you know when you're actually having an orgasm?

Okay, this actually isn't a basic question and I think this is the source of a lot of misinformation about orgasm. We're taught to believe that orgasm is so like explosive and earth shattering and incredible.

Like when you feel it, you'll know. Oh yeah, I feel like that line has been uttered in plenty of teen movie. Right?

You'll know.

Or if you've had one, you'd know. As if there's sort of like some judgment, like, oh, you obviously haven't because you don't know.

Yeah, exactly. But the thing is, when you're first learning to orgasm and you're first having them, those first orgasms are going to be very small. They're not going to be explosive and earth shattering. You can absolutely get to that point later on. But it's like you're a beginner, you're just learning. Your body is getting used to this sensation. You're getting used to how you get yourself there. So they're going to be very small. And interestingly, like in finishing school. So one of the updates that I made to finishing school was sharing, hey, we've got to reset your expectations. You're going through this course, you've made this big investment. We're going through it. But like, I want you to know that your first orgasms are going to be very small and may even be disappointing because in earlier versions of finishing school, like, women would have their first orgasms and then they'd reach out to me and say like, that's it. I did this whole thing for that.

So I, what did I pay for?

So I added the disclaimer of like, look, they're gonna be small. It's okay. It's like, like there's sort of a two phase process. Like you learn how to orgasm and then you learn how to make the orgasms more pleasurable. And even then, even with that warning, we still get women reaching out Saying like, that was not that great. But anyways, how do we know when we're having an orgasm? So there are a couple of signs that you can look for. The most frequent one, but I want to be super clear in saying this does not happen for every woman or every orgasm. But the most frequent sign of an orgasm is involuntary muscle pulsing. So if you feel like the muscles in your vagina are contracting and you're not doing anything, that's a pretty good sign of it. You can even put your finger like on the outside of your vulva or inside your vagina. And if you can feel the muscles kind of pulsing around it, that's a really good sign.

To all the guys out there who are like, oh, I can totally tell that she's having an orgasm because I can feel the pulses. I do want to make a quick caveat that those are very easy to be faked. So for all the guys who are like, oh yeah, I can feel it, like, no, you actually can't because she's just squeezing her Kegels.

So yes, if you feel like you're not doing it, that's a really good sign. And then the second most common sign is hypersensitivity in your clitoris. And I think I may have seen another question about this hypersensitivity. But if it feels like all of a sudden you just can't touch your clitoris anymore, it feels too sensitive, that's another sign that you've actually had an orgasm. So if you kind of reset your expectations of like, it's not going to be this huge earth shattering experience, you might realize like, oh yeah, that actually was an orgasm.

And I think another, another interesting thing is like, this just made me think about my own experience with orgasm. And I think for a lot of guys this can be tough because most men have their first orgasms like pretty early in puberty. And so it's just been a really long time since they've thought about what was it like when they were first having orgasms. But for me, my first many orgasms, I don't think they were very good. I barely knew what I was doing. Like, I was like, okay, I think, I think this is what I'm supposed to do. Like, I think this feels good or like there's this pressure. Like I can't tell if it's gonna feel good or if it's gonna hurt or what's gonna happen. And I was like, you know, I was nervous. I was horrified that like, you know, my mom might walk into my room. Even though it was the middle of the night, that kind of thing. And so, like, I was super nervous, and I'm sure my first couple orgasms were really small and pretty nerve wracking. So I was like, oh, my God, what's happening? Like, what is this stuff coming out? I don't know. Like, oh, God. And, you know, it wasn't until much later that, you know, as I got more and more comfortable of, oh, this is how I do it, this is what happens. You know, I'm not scared that someone's gonna walk in. I feel comfortable with myself. Like, at that point, it starts to get better and better and better. But I think most. Most guys that's just been, you know, 10 years, 20, 30, 40 years ago, and you forget about that stuff.

Yeah, absolutely.

All right. Is it possible to have an orgasm in your dreams?

It is possible for people of all genders, I think. You know, we hear a lot about wet dreams with penis owners, but it's also possible for vulva owners to have orgasms in their dreams.

I had one the other night.

What? You had a wet dream the other night?

No. Well, okay, I. I swear I have. I don't know. I. I think that I. I think I don't have wet dreams anymore. I. I have, like, orgasms in my dreams, but I don't actually.

Like certain blanks in your.

I think so. And it's great. It's great. I highly recommend it. Not like that. I figured it out. It just happens.

We really have to start recording video of us doing these episodes.

Vanessa was so shocked my face. Oh, you're sharing that? I mean, I did.

Okay.

And you would have never known. So, you know, what's the harm?

Okay, so it is possible to have orgasms in your dreams. There isn't really anything you can do to control it. So sometimes people ask me, like, oh, how do I do it? But it's just like a nice little side benefit when it happens. So just enjoy it if it does happen. Don't expect it. Don't try to make it happen. But I do want to be clear that for female orgasm, the path to orgasm is clitoral stimulation. It's not dreaming, it's not dreaming, it's not sleeping. Just like we expect that for penis owners, for men like that, they need their penis stimulated to reach orgasm. The clitoris is the most sensitive part of our body. It's actually the biological equivalent of the penis. So we need clitoral stimulation to reach orgasm. All this shit about, like, thinking you're supposed to orgasm from Intercourse from penetration alone. The G spot stuff, like, it's really just all about the clitoris. Actually, we didn't get any G spot questions. Maybe we've talked enough on.

We trained you.

Although we trained you guys to know the G spot is actually the legs of the clitoris. It's still the clitoris. It's not some top secret spot. It's all the clitoris.

And we also didn't get any questions about cervical orgasms. Thank goodness.

Yeah, I know. I just had to, like, throw that in there. Like, it's the clit, guys. It's the clit.

But, yeah, don't worry. There's no such thing as cervical orgasms, despite what you might see on the Internet.

Yeah.

All right, now we're really gonna go deep. Can you please explain squirting in detail? What is it? What isn't it? Can it be stopped? Can all women squirt?

Okay, so we do have an entirely squirt centric episode. It's called I Got Squirted. The Xander Marin Story.

By the way, if you're listening, and you didn't listen, fortunately, it was just a couple episodes, I think, that we shared this story. It has nothing to do with squirting, by the way.

It has to do with Xander yelling in my ear while he orgasms. So that is episode 49. Go check it out. Is one of our most popular episodes. All the details, all the questions you could possibly wonder about squirting. But what I will say here is that squirting is just the expulsion of fluid through the urethra. Squirting is not orgasming. Orgasming is not squirting. You can squirt without orgasming. You can orgasm without squirting. They're two separate processes. So a lot of times women ask, like, oh, I didn't squirt. That must mean I didn't have an orgasm. No, that is incorrect. Totally different process.

Yeah. And guys. So many guys are like, oh, well, if you didn't squirt, it must not have been a very good orgasm. No. If you are a guy, never say that, because not all women can squirt. In fact, I think most women can't squirt. And we don't really know what makes some women squirt. It's. It's the whole thing.

There's not a lot of research on it, as you can imagine.

If you would like to fund a research study on female squirting. Yeah. Fund a research grant. I don't know. Yeah. I don't know what university. Well, we'll do that.

But Igi got squirted in.

Great. But, yeah, I mean, I think that's the really important thing, because a lot of men just think that squirting is like the be all, end all. And no one really knows how it happens exactly or why it happens. But the reality is that some women do it, many women don't. End of story. It's like, it's not cool to be pressuring your partner to do something that's not actually going to bring them any more pleasure, especially when it's something that they might just not be able to do. All right, Vanessa, how about clitoris size? Does it affect how easy it is for a vulva owner to orgasm?

No, your clitoris size does not affect your ability to orgasm. It's sort of like saying, does penis size affect your ability to orgasm?

I got a huge dick. I have huge orgasms. Bigger the dick, the bigger the O. That would actually be an amazing T shirt. Big dick, Big oh, big dbo.

Big O.

B, D, B, O energy.

Okay? So no, it does not affect how easy it is. So don't worry. Clitorises and penises come in all different shapes, all different sizes. They're all capable of feeling pleasure and reaching orgasm.

I think the really interesting thing here is that what many people may not realize is that what you visibly see of the clitoris is actually only a small percentage of the actual structure of the clitoris. Most of it is internal. So I think a lot of people might be like, oh, like my. My clit, like, the external part of my clitoris protrudes more than most people, and so I have a bigger clitoris. But, like, you probably don't, because your clitoris, the most. The majority of it is actually inside of your body. And so what you see from the outside probably has no bearing on how big it really is. Is. All right, this one gets back a bit to the first one about, like, how to know when you're having an orgasm. This person says, what do I do when I get too sensitive before orgasm so that I can't finish? They've never had an orgasm before, it sounds like.

So for this person, I get really curious about if they actually are having orgasms, because, again, that hypersensitivity like we were talking about earlier, that's one of the classic signs.

Yeah, maybe they're having, like, a not very satisfying orgasm.

Yeah, it's a not very satisfying orgasm. And then they're feeling too sensitive to continue. They're thinking like, oh, I'm supposed to continue, but their body's saying, like, don't continue. We already had the orgasm. So a lot of times what I recommend in this kind of situation is tell yourself, I had an orgasm. That was an orgasm. It's a lot of it is, like, that mental shift, and again, you're gonna feel this disappointment of, like, that was an orgasm. That was nothing. It was so disappointing. But, like, give yourself a little bit of time and see if you can, you know, if you think about it in that way, if you're able to focus a little bit more on that experience before the hypersensitivity kicks in.

Oh, so, like, the next time. So that way, instead of thinking, like, oh, I'm feeling really good. I'm getting that sensitivity thing, and, like, I'm broken because, like, it's not happening. Instead, you're saying, like, feel into, like, oh, yeah, like, this thing is happening that feels really good, and focus on that experience rather than the, oh, my God, I'm. I'm gonna have to stop after this. And then, you know, that might be your path to actually starting to have really pleasurable orgasms.

Yes.

All right, on the flip side, what about this one? It takes me a long time to finish. About 30 plus minutes sometimes. And my boyfriend says that it feels like a chore, and he doesn't enjoy sex as much because of it. It's made me insecure. How can I make myself finish faster?

Okay, so first of all, I really wonder how this conversation went between the two of them. Like, we could turn this question into its own episode. Because I, like, I really wonder, how did he phrase, like, I don't enjoy sex as much? It's made sex feel like a chore. Like this. To me, that sounds like a very cruel thing to say to a partner. Like, you know, let's be realistic. Like, of course, giving somebody, like, if I were to imagine Xander, like, giving you a blowjob for 30 minutes, like, that's a good amount of time. I'm gonna get a little bit tired, like, you know, a little. I think it's understandable. But I think saying, like, it's a chore. I don't enjoy it. Like, that, to me, just comes across as cruel. So I'm just gonna table that because that's, you know, that's not exactly what this episode is about. But I do just want to say I don't think the way that he phrases is very cool.

Yeah, absolutely not. And yet, at the same time, I can completely relate with this because I've been here myself. Like, you know, as a guy when you are shown and fed all this information about, like, how sex should be, you know, just about your dick and penetration and giving women orgasms like that. And perhaps your past experience has shown you that, oh, you know, I just pound away for a couple of minutes, and then she fakes an orgasm. I think she's having an orgasm. We struggled with the same thing early on in our relationship where, you know, I felt frustrated because no one else, no other woman that I had ever been with had ever mentioned that she needed more time to orgasm or that she was struggling to get there or that, like, she needed me to pay more attention. And so there was a part of me that was just like, oh, I just want it to be easy like it used to be.

Yeah. We talk about this in the book, in our upcoming book, Sex Talks, how Xander was a real asshole about my orgasm at the beginning of our relationship.

So I absolutely was. I just. I. I didn't know any better. And I also had no way of knowing that, like, most of my experience wasn't, like, what I thought I knew. I didn't know because probably the vast majority of women that I have slept with before Vanessa faked orgasms.

So that's a. It's a good reminder to have to give, you know, put some context around it, that it's really easy for us to read a question and just think, like, what an asshole. But, you know, a lot of times, like, we are all operating with misinformation and misunderstanding, and we're not trying to be jerks to each other. Just we don't know any better. And so that's so much of what we are trying to do in our business, is help us all know better so that we can be better partners to each other. So let's set that aside and let's just go to the question of how can I make myself finish faster? So the best thing that you can do is to focus on your timing when you are masturbating. So trying to focus on bringing yourself as much pleasure as quickly as possible. The more that you practice shaving that timeline down on your own, the easier it is going to be to get there faster with a partner.

Guys are really good at this because from a young age, you start masturbating and you're probably doing it at home. You're probably not wanting to be walked in on. And you train yourself to get it done really quick. And that's why a lot of guys don't last for very long, have performance problems, because we've literally trained Ourselves from puberty that. Like, that. That sex or masturbation is this shameful thing that we need to hide, but we still need to get. We still need to do it. And so we do it really quick, and it's like, oh, once you start, just can't stop. Oh, God, now I'm coming. That's it. Wow. Yeah. Well, that quick. Wow, that was embarrassing. Okay, how many orgasms can Xander have in one episode?

So work on it. With masturbation, when you're with your partner, like, this person, she doesn't say what they're doing during that 30 minutes, but I obviously want to make sure to say, like, you need to get clitoral stimulation. If you're just having penetration, you're barely getting any clitoral stimulation. Like, of course it's going to take a really long time. So make sure you're getting clitoral stimulation. And you can also explore perhaps using a vibrator. Vibrators are amazing for giving this intensity of stimulation, the consistency of stimulation. So a lot of women will find that they can orgasm a lot faster with a vibrator.

And also, you can start with the clitoral stimulation before the intercourse actually starts, with some oral sex or some fingering, like, before the intercourse starts. Because I think the mistake a lot of couples make is they kind of gloss over those initial foreplay activities and go straight for the intercourse and that. And she's just totally not warmed up at all at that point. And then, yeah, it might take 30 minutes to get to that point. And, you know, understandably, the guy's like, oh, like, this is feeling like it's taking forever. So I think, you know, he might be shooting himself in the foot by kind of jumping into things. All right, the million dollar question now. How do I have multiple orgasms? And please tell me, because I would love to know how to have multiple orgasms, get rid of that refractory period. But this. Oh, sorry. This episode isn't about me.

Okay, so the refractory period of what Xander just mentioned is something that penis owners have and vulva owners do not. So for men, they have this refractory period, which is a period of time after orgasm where no matter what, they are not going to be able to get hard and have an orgasm again. Like, the body just needs time to settle back down, recalibrate. Needs time to, like, get re. Aroused. And that refractory period increases as a guy gets older. Now, for us women, or for vulva owners, we don't have that refractory period. So Our bodies are capable of having an orgasm again right away. So the thing that I want to say with multiple orgasms, though, is it is totally fine to just have one orgasm. You don't need to be this like. Like, circus monkey jumping through all these hoops, having, like, 10 orgasms in a row. Like, it's fine to just have one.

Yeah, because capable doesn't mean that you should. Vanessa described what her experience was, which was that her first orgasm tends to be the really big one, and then ones after that. It's challenging because she's feeling sensitive, and then they're not very good either. And so they kind of just don't feel like. It's kind of, like, disappointing after that big one. But I. For other women, it can be the other way around, where sometimes, like, the first orgasm is perhaps a not so exciting one. And, you know, the first one or the first two or whatever, and then you have that much bigger one. So that's just where understanding your own body and Vanessa talked about this, like, through masturbation can be really, really helpful. So you get a sense for you, like, how does my body work? How does my orgasm work? Am I a one and done type of. Do I need, you know, 1, 2, 3 before I kind of have that big one? So that's just. That's a question that you're gonna have to answer for yourself, you know, when you practice.

And so, okay, in terms of the actual technique of doing it, you are probably gonna want to give your body a little bit of a break in between because your clitoris is probably gonna be pretty sensitive. So you can either stop stimulation altogether, or you can just hold a finger or the palm against your clitoris for a little bit of, like, grounding pressure and then start up again once you're not feeling the hypersensitivity anymore and start slow, ease your way into it, but do the exact same thing you did to get to that first orgasm.

Okay, next question is my mental health medication greatly impacts my ability to orgasm? It's really difficult. Any strategies or tips to deal with this?

So this is something that a lot of people don't realize, that there are so many medications that can make it harder to orgasm. So a lot of psychiatric medications, but even medications like antihistamines can make it harder to reach orgasm. And this is a really frustrating situation with mental health medications in particular, because you obviously need those medications. You're not just taking them for fun. They're not easy ones to say, oh, I'm just not going to take that one. Anymore. So the best tip that we can give you is that you have to find a doctor or a psychiatrist that takes sexual side effects seriously and that you're willing to have open and honest conversations with. There are things that you can do with the help of a medical provider, but there are things like, you know, changing the specific medication, the dosage, the timing of dosage, adding different supplements. Again, don't do any of this without talking to your doctor. But there are things that you can do. You just need to find the right medical care team.

Okay, we got a couple questions about this one. The general question is, is it normal for your orgasm to change after you have kids? So, like, one person is saying it takes them a lot longer. Another person is saying that they used to have, like, full body shakes when they orgasmed, and now they kind of feel like, wait, that was it.

Yes, unfortunately, it is normal for orgasm to change after having kids. And that's because having kids is a pretty monumental change for your body. Like being pregnant, going through pregnancy, going through childbirth, having the, you know, healing after childbirth. It's a really enormous thing that happens to your body. And it's. It's very common for you to experience changes to your orgasm. So it might be that, you know, what you liked before is different from what you like now. So for a lot of women, there's this kind of rediscovery process, re exploration process that you have to go through of figuring out what your body likes and enjoys. But one thing I want to say is that it very often can be a result of pelvic floor issues. So your pelvic floor really goes through the wringer during pregnancy and childbirth, and it can cause a lot of issues that then affect pain, pleasure, and orgasm. So I definitely recommend finding a pelvic floor physical therapist to work with.

All right, Vanessa, now we got a real big one. Why do women have to focus so hard on orgasming and men don't?

So this is a very interesting question, because truly, female orgasm and male orgasm are no different. Female orgasm is not any more difficult, complicated, mysterious, challenging than male orgasm. It's just that we women have really been set up for failure from a very young age. You know, we're taught all this BS about our bodies to feel so self conscious and ashamed and embarrassed. We are, you know, much more discouraged from masturbating than boys are. With boys, there's like a, oh, boys will be boys kind of thing. And with women and, you know, girls, we're really discouraged. So we don't get that Opportunity to explore our bodies, to discover what we like, like Xander was mentioning earlier. And so we often find ourselves in adulthood still getting blasted by all these dumb articles by movies and TV and porn showing female orgasm in totally incorrect way. Like, we get to adulthood and we just don't have that experience. We're dealing with all this shame and embarrassment and misinformation. It's just like, we're totally set up for failure. So that's why it feels so much harder for us when we haven't been given those same opportunities that men have.

But if you just stimulate the proper genitalia just like you do for a man, orgasm is.

Is.

I'm not going to say easy, but, like, orgasm should operate the same way between genders. Like, if you just properly stimulate the right body part so the clitoris for women, the penis for men, then orgasm is pretty much the same thing. The problem is we want to do activities that sometimes don't always stimulate the clitoris. And then we're like, huh, how come we're not orgasming? Or our annoying male partner is like, oh, I shouldn't have to stimulate your clitoris. Like, I should be able to just put it in your vagina and that's it. And sorry, dude, doesn't work that way.

Exactly. So, yeah, I mean, there definitely are a lot of other pieces of this as well. That's why I spend so much time in finishing school talking about, like, mental and emotional blockages and dealing with mental distractions and difficult thoughts in the moment. So there's a ton of additional content and resources, all about this.

And that stuff can come up for men, too. Like, that stuff, you know, that stuff absolutely can come up for men. And that can manifest itself in performance anxiety. You know, premature ejaculation coming too fast, or delayed ejaculation taking too long, or trouble getting it up at all. So it's like, you know, we. We all have our challenges. They just present themselves in different ways. And, you know, they may present themselves for fewer men, or sometimes fewer men may be willing to talk about them because it's also a kind of embarrassing thing as well. So, you know, everybody struggles in their own way. On the flip side, no refractory period for women. I would love that.

But alas, how many orgasms would you go for?

I. I guess. I mean, I guess I would just be curious what type of orgasm? Or am I. Am I a one and done? Maybe I would just discover that, yeah, the first one is great and the next one sucks. And I'd like Be like, well, that was a waste of time. Or maybe they just keep getting better and better and I never get out of bed. No, I don't know. I say three. I say three. Okay, three sounds good. Sounds like respectable. Respectable, but not, you know, not like indulgent. Overindulgent.

I love the idea of a respectable but not indulgent.

Yeah, like respectable orgasm or.

Actually screw that. No, I want to be indulgent. Overindulgent orgasm or.

Okay, last but not least. The people want to know, do you actually have an orgasm, Vanessa, every time you have sex?

I do. I do. And that's because we obey our own golden rule that everybody who wants an orgasm gets. Gets an orgasm.

And she wants an orgasm, and I want an orgasm.

So to be clear, like, orgasm isn't the be all, end all of sex. It's not the only thing that makes sex pleasurable. I mean, orgasm, like, at the most, you're gonna have 20 seconds of orgasm. And, you know, you can spend an entire evening, a whole day, if you want, like, with your partner having pleasure and connection and fun. So it's not everything, but I definitely enjoy a great orgasm. Yeah, I want to have one every single time that we're intimate. And so you and I, despite our rocky beginnings that we had, we really operate as a team and we make sure that both of us feel satisfaction and pleasure and enjoyment. And so I have an orgasm every time. So I gotta say, though, that sometimes hearing this question makes me a little sad because I think there are so many women out there where you just can't even wrap your head around the idea of you getting to have the same kind of experience that your partner has on a consistent basis. And again, to be clear, like, the golden rule is whoever wants an orgasm gets an orgasm. Not everybody wants an orgasm every single time. That's totally valid. That is a decision that you get to make in your own sex life. But still, like, I just think that there are so many women who. That orgasm gap is so big in their own relationship that they just cannot fathom being able to have an equitable experience. And that makes me sad. And. And that's why female orgasm has been such a passion of mine for so many years. That's why I created finishing school in the first place. That's why we're making these episodes. That's why we're talking about orgasm in so many different contexts and trying to make sure that everybody is educated about how it really works. Because you do deserve to have a fair and equal and pleasurable and satisfying experience. You deserve to have an orgasm each and every single time that you want an orgasm. Preach mic drop.

Wow.

That was the saddest. Like, mic drop. It was very unenthusiastic. But I was thinking in the moment, I was like, you're always the one who says mic drop of yourself. And. And it makes me laugh every time because it just feels so egotistical and funny. Like, yeah, I did my own mic drop.

So come on, claim it.

No mic drop.

All right, well, that's it for today's episode of Pillow Talks. Thank you so much for listening.

And don't forget to go to the Show Notes to check out the link to finishing school or go to vmtherapy.com howto orgasm. Remember it is is closing down. The doors are closing next month. The course will be available to you for life. But the doors are closing at the beginning of December. So make sure you get in. Make sure you get that discount. Would love to see you in there. Would love to have you experiencing, having orgasms whenever you want them.

All right, well, join us again next week when we talk about your biggest initiation frustration motions.