How do you feel about orgasms? Have you ever experienced one that went beyond fun or pleasure or release? Or struggled to have one in the first place?
If your answer is yes or yes, you are far from alone.
Phone sex operator Amberly Rothfield had just gone through a several-month sex hiatus when she experienced one that changed her life. Author Dr. Samantha Allen had started to think orgasms were no longer a part of her life when, two years after sex-reassignment surgery, she was surprised by one. And therapist Vanessa Marin had her first orgasm on the playground as a child, only to struggle in the climax department years later.
I’m excited, and honestly honored, to share these awesome women’s stories today, all of which show that we can discover new types of pleasure at any stage of life.
Stream this Girl Boner Radio episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio or below! Keep reading for a lightly edited transcript.
First, Amberly’s story. Amberly Rothfield is a top-performing phone sex operator, clip creator and webcam model who teaches models how to increase their bottom line online. She’s also a devoted wife and mother, whose partner came out as trans a couple of years ago.
Amberly:
So I was literally physically about five feet that way, like in this room. And it was a year, not a year after my wife came out, but a year after she had been on hormones. Her body is honestly five zillion times different than it was before. I did not realize the drastic changes that some chemicals make in what you look like. And I’m not gonna lie. I was never going to leave my wife ever, but you have concerns about what’s going to change and how are you going to adapt with that change? And as a partner of someone who came out as trans, my inclination is to make it all about her because she’s the one that’s lived this life. And you’ve met my wife before her transition: a full beard, like a MAN-man. So it’s been drastic.
I wanted to make it all about her, but at the same time, you have your own concerns. At the time, I was actively trying not to think about this. I thought, I’m being selfish. I haven’t lived a life where I felt like I was in the wrong body. So that’s about year after and honestly, we had probably gone—to get super personal here—a few months without having any kind of sexual encounters. And that’s 300% my fault, not 100%, but 300%. I was actively avoiding it because now that the most significant changes have happened, I don’t know how I feel about this. And then I thought, but I love her and there’s things that we both need.
So the mood was right. It was Shabbat we were drunk off of sacramental wine. And I was like, screw it. No, I’m not going to avoid it this time. Let’s go for it. And I remember during the orgasm moment—well, leading up to it—I was like, oh my gosh, this feels the same. It feels like it’s just my partner and it’s amazing. Then I actually had a way better orgasm than I’ve ever had. . . I’m not going to lie. That could be attributed to going months without. Who knows?
August:
A little extra anticipation, right?
Amberly:
Yeah.
August:
You know, Betty Dodson, the mother of masturbation? She talks about blue balls and blue clits. Like there can be a buildup!
Amberly:
Exactly. It could be like a massive blue clit situation going on. But I also like to believe that it wasn’t 100% blue clit. I’m not going to lie. I like a good pair of boobs. I had boobs in my face and her body’s more curvaceous than it once was. I’m getting to feel these curves that weren’t there before, and it was a really great new sensation. And right as I’m coming down from climax, I remember thinking that was the best orgasm of my life. It was like having the first orgasm ever. And then I thought it kind was my first orgasm with my, air quotes, “new partner.”
Since then, we’ve had no issues and it’s been really cool. Having this experience for the first time with someone who A is trans, I’d never been with a trans person before. B, it was really cool, this dichotomy of being with my partner, but also her new body. So anyhoo, I loved it.
August:
That’s beautiful. How did that impact your sense of sexuality moving forward? Or maybe your relationship to orgasm?
Amberly:
I like to say we all think we’re progressive till we’re face to face with an issue we’ve never had to deal with before. And it really made me think about it. Until then, I liked to tell people I’m lesbian. When my wife came out as trans, it was like the best moment of my life because I was like, I don’t have this identity crisis anymore. Like it makes sense. She was a woman. But I’ve also never been with the trans woman before.
So I’m not gonna lie. I think the resistance of me not wanting to sleep with her was because now you’re very obviously… Ooh, I don’t like saying that. But like, in my head, she was “more trans.” I don’t like that. But it was there and having to confront that, it’s made it to where I actually do enjoy way more trans porn than I had before. And it wasn’t just, Oh, those are pretty bodies. It’s like this is super fucking sexy. I know how that feels.
It gave me that sense of empathy that I didn’t have. So now I like to say my orgasms are more rich. I’m not as inhibited. I’m not coming up to this moment where I’m like, is it going to be good? Because prior to that, when we went on that three-month hiatus, there was a lot of is it going to be good? I don’t know. I’ve never done this before. And I was very tense. I was not being in the moment, so I didn’t get that enjoyment.
August:
It sounds like this experience, and also your approach and mindset and your relationship, really helped broaden your eroticism.
Amberly:
It did.
August:
I had chills listening to that.
Amberly:
Oh, thank you. It did. It made me confront some stuff inside of me that I didn’t even know I had. Thank god, it’s slayed. Dead. The beast will never rise again. I think especially because I grew up in Dallas, Texas, where it was very, very, very, very conservative, and being a lesbian, liking women in that sense, I still had some sort of heteronormative thing going on in my head. And it was being forced to be confronted with that in a physical form.
Because it’s one thing to watch it online and to get off, even to masturbate with this stuff online. But it’s another thing to have it in front of you. And it really did change not just my way of thinking but also made it to where I can relax and enjoy this rather than having my East Texas upbringing clicking in my head telling me this is wrong. This is wrong.
August:
Yeah, yeah. It’s so easy to absorb those messages and not know that we have them, because I think we all absorb every kind of, you know, transphobia, biphobia, misogyny, racism—it’s in all of us in some ways.
Amberly:
We’re sponges.
August
We are sponges and you had a sponge release. It sounds like it helped heal this piece in you, which is beautiful.
Amberly:
It did. It was it was a Clorox moment where you just sanitize that sponge. It was great.
August:
That’s really lovely. Have you had conversations with your partner about all of this?
Amberly:
I did. We had a pillow talk moment afterwards where I told her why we’d gone three months before. And I told her about my East Texas, because it happened so fast. And not that I like to quote him, but Dr. Phil was saying that you think stuff 6,000 times faster than you can say it. So you can have a lot of thoughts go through your head faster than you could ever articulate them. And so I was telling her what was going through my head in that moment, and she was like, “Wow, you’ve been in the adult industry for 15 years, and you still got a hint of that in you.” And I was like, “Sorry!”
But I don’t told her it was the best orgasm my life and for her she was like, “That’s exceptionally validating, that you have been sleeping with me before I came out as trans, before I even knew what trans was or what I was, and for you to follow me through this process and then sleep with me after and be like, ‘It’s even better,’ I feel like a woman.” And I’m like, that’s the goal, to not just have a good time for myself, obviously, but also to make her feel like the person she’s supposed to be.
August (narration):
Next, Samantha’s story. Samantha Allen is the author of Real Queer America: LGBT Stories from Red States, an award-winning travelogue that the New York Times Book Review called “a powerful book of memoir and reportage.” Samantha’s debut book, Love & Estrogen, tells the story of meeting her wife in a Kinsey Institute elevator—a real-life queer rom-com.
I reached out to Samantha after reading an article she wrote for Splinter called, How I learned to orgasm after sex reassignment surgery.
Samantha:
Before I had the surgery, I was trying to find really good information about orgasm rates after the surgery or how long it was taking people and the sources I was finding weren’t that reliable, or it was pointing me to medical articles that a lay person might not be able to parse. When I had the surgery, I was sitting with this experience for two years, talking about it with other transgender women kind of in like back channels, you know? It’s something we would whisper about or email to each other about. And I guess I just wanted to put something out there, as intimate as it was, that would help other people who are going through the same experience.
August:
When you went in to start the process, did you talk to your doctor about it? Did your doctor bring it up at all?
Samantha:
When you do look at the medical literature, it’s a pretty safe bet that you’ll be able to orgasm again. Rates of orgasm after vaginoplasty are very high. So I don’t think my doctor was worried about it. But it was certainly something that patients or a lot of transgender women who have the surgery worry about. Conversations that I was having with my partner, too, of what are things going to look like after this? How easy or hard are things going to be? Just a lot of questions swirling in your head that you kind of have to figure out firsthand. You can read all that literature, but nothing really fully prepares you for the experience of relearning your own anatomy when you’re an adult.
August:
Yes, completely. I loved your opening, or it was near the beginning. You said “my vagina came with an instruction manual.” What was your impression when you were going through those instructions?
Samantha:
Gosh, I mean most of it was aftercare instructions about when you should go swimming or sit in a hot tub again. There are regulations around how long you should wait to be immersed in water. But also stuff about how your nerves are literally coming back online and that you should be patient with yourself and there may have been something in there that was like it takes people sometimes eight to 12 months to figure out how to really have an orgasm again and that’s fine. That was comforting to read. But then I got to 24 months and I was like okay, what is going on?
August:
Your frustration that you talked about was, I thought, a really important piece, as you pointed out and shared research findings about. It’s a challenge for a lot of people to experience orgasm, especially people with vulvas, because we don’t learn much and and all of those things. When you are talking about the frustration, you said that at a certain point, you found out that there’s a term: anorgasmia.
Samantha:
Yeah. I mean, I speak only for myself. Being able to have an orgasm wasn’t a necessary precondition for me to have the surgery. My gender dysphoria was such that it needed to happen and I was willing to accept some amount of risk that I would be anorgasmic. But it was comforting to know that it’s a struggle that many transgender and cisgender women have in common. Figuring out orgasm is tricky. Not everyone gets there, not everyone gets there easily and that’s okay. It’s normal.
August:
Yeah, yeah. And then it happened for you… I just got chills because I just read your article again. There’s this beautiful excitement of this surprise. Tell us about when it happened.
Samantha:
It’s sort of a “watch pot never boils” kind of scenario. After about a year, I got into this frustrating head space. It’s not a really arousing thought to think I’m never goning to have an orgasm again and you get in your own head. You want it to happen, but you’re also trying not to think about it happening so that it can happen and your brain just becomes this pretzel. So for me, it was almost like giving up on it that freed it to happen. I gave up on it as the end point of the time that I spent with myself. And after I stopped thinking about it as this teleological endpoint that I was trying to get to, spending time with myself and my vibrator, it just kind of happened. And it took me completely by surprise.
August:
You also talked about experiencing orgasm prior to your surgery and after and the differences. And you said that you prefer what you can experience now. Would you share a thought about that?
Samantha:
Yeah. Eve Ensler added a monologue to “The Vagina Monologues” to be inclusive of transgender women who have had this surgery, and I think she describes it really well as like, orgasm before feels very sudden and harsh. And then afterward, it’s kind of like rolling waves of pleasure. To be honest, orgasm before, it kind of feels a little bit like dying. Sudden and it’s just like, boom, you just jump off a cliff and it’s over. And now it’s more of these kind of like cascading waves of pleasure that roll through you. And now it’s gentler but still as intense of an experience, if that makes sense.
August:
You have this ritual. At the time—so this was in 2016, when the article came out—you said, “now I want to orgasm, I have a routine that borders on superstition.” You wanted to kind of protect it. Would you speak to that? I’m also curious if that has stayed a part of your life these last few years.
Samantha:
After it first happened, I was like, Okay, I need to exactly replicate these conditions. What was the thermostat set to? What curtains were dropped? An insane level of detail. I don’t have exact specifications anymore. But I feel like it helps to have some kind of ritual going into it because it helps me feel confident, like this happened before and it can happen again. Thankfully, by now—gosh, it’s been six years since I had the surgery—it’s become for me a fairly automatic expectation.
August:
As I was reading your your article, something that kept coming up for me was how very parallel your experience, in so many ways, to cisgender women who struggle with orgasm or who were like “I don’t understand my anatomy.” Obviously very different in some ways, too. . . Do you feel like if you had better sex ed, you would have had better understanding? Like if they talked about pleasure and you had some sense about, okay, so if you have a vagina a vulva and a clitoris…
Samantha:
I think more comprehensive sex ed in this country would definitely help. My sex education was mostly focused on abstinence and pregnancy prevention and anatomical stuff that had nothing to do with sex or sexual pleasure. Coming from this on the flip side of, before I even transitioned and I was dating mostly women, you have to learn how pleasure works firsthand through experience, through talking to partners and being like, what feels good?
And what you’ve seen depicted of sex in the media is so different from what it looks like in a bedroom and the process of negotiating that pleasure and being sure everyone comes out of the experience pleased, this is something I think a lot of people learn the hard way… It would have made a world of difference. Even just the information of like your body can experience pleasure and that’s part of sex. And not just all doom and gloom about not catching diseases or getting pregnant.
August:
You pointed out several really important myths about sex and orgasm after surgery. What is like the biggest myth that you’d like to debunk for a cisgender person who’s heard a lot of transphobic things and they just don’t know better yet?
Samantha:
Sometimes people are of this mindset that men and women aren’t different genders, but like different species, almost like male and female bodies are complete aliens and that have diverged in some huge, dramatic way. And when you go through an experience like sex reassignment surgery, you realize that’s not the case.
There’s this misconception about, “you’re just like chopping the penis off.” And that’s not what sex reassignment surgery is. You’re using tissue that could have easily developed into a vagina and reshaping it in that form. It’s more reuse, reduce, recycle than it is chopping anything off, right? We all start out at the same place in fetal development.
We all start from one thing and we can go in these different directions. And things like transgender hormone therapy and surgeries, they’re about kind of bringing your body into alignment with the direction your heart wants. I think that’s the number one message I try to get out there. Because people think like women and men are aliens compared to each other. The body is pretty similar.
August:
And what does orgasm mean to you now?
Samantha:
I wish I had a deep answer, but it’s like a little treat, you know? It’s nice to have to stay sane and feel grounded and feel relaxed. But it’s still not necessary for me to enjoy my time in the bedroom.
And I think a lot of women can relate to this, it’s still much easier for me to orgasm alone than it is with a partner. So for me, it’s nice if it happens with my partner, but it’s not the goal of spending intimate time. And that’s, I think, a healthy lesson that I took from the experience of having that two-year waiting period because I feel like if I hadn’t had that, I would have continued maybe approaching sex as like a means to having an orgasm and not necessarily as a means to deepening my connection.
August (narration):
Now, Vanessa’s story, and her expert advice for anyone feeling challenged by the pursuit of orgasms. Vanessa Marin is a licensed psychotherapist specializing in sex therapy and online programs that help you transform your sex life. Long before her career started, she had her first orgasm. And at the time, she wasn’t sure what happened.
Vanessa:
I was in elementary school and just climbing the jungle gym, you know, having fun at recess and all of a sudden the jungle gym was feeling really good. And it really caught me off guard. I had no idea what it was that was happening and I got a little scared, too. Like did I hurt myself in some way? Is something broken? But also just noticing like wow, that felt really enjoyable.
And I didn’t really think about it until years and years later when I started intentionally trying to have orgasms. At that point when I realized, oh, that’s what was happening, I felt super embarrassed about it and kind of ashamed. And I’ve realized now, as I have gone on to do this work and help teach so many women how to orgasm, that actually, so many women have had experiences of that’s their first orgasm. It was unintentional. It was something involving a jungle gym or ropes and stuff like that. And so now I really like talking about the story, because I think it’s just so important to normalize. So many women have orgasms this way, and there’s nothing bad or wrong or icky about it. It’s totally normal and very, very common.
August (narration):
She told me that helping others learn how to have an orgasm became a passion and focus within her work wen she started struggling to experience them with a partner. She had figured out how to intentionally orgasm on her own, and that was great. But she had difficulty translating that to climaxing during partnered sex.
Vanessa:
Even as I was going through training to become a sex therapist, I was still struggling with it. And so there was this added layer of imposter syndrome on top of all of it, you know? How can I not figure this out? I really experienced so many of the emotions that the women that I now work with experience: feeling like something’s wrong with you, you’re broken in some way, the stuff that’s supposed to work for every other woman out there, it doesn’t work for you.
And so honestly, I really came back to just being able to have this really deep understanding of what it’s like to struggle with orgasm. And once I did figure it out for myself realizing like, Oh, my gosh, it’s so exciting to go through this process of exploring your orgasm and discovering what your body needs and being willing to advocate for yourself and your own pleasure. So I wanted to be able to share that experience with women, too. I get the pain and frustration and fear of not being able to, and I know how amazing it is to get to the other side, and I want women to be able to experience that too.
August (narration):
Vanessa told me that if you’re really struggling in the Big O department, the first best step is to know that you are not alone and that there is nothing wrong with you. So many people have difficulties inviting an orgasm, especially people with vulvas.
Vanessa:
And I can say this from personal experience, too. I truly felt like I’m the only woman in the world who has not figured this out. And every woman that I’ve worked with has said some variation of that—like, I really must be the only person. Something is horribly wrong with me. So it sounds very simple, but really just starting with that understanding of nothing is wrong with you.
August (narration):
Secondly, Vanessa pointed out that orgasm is a skill, and one that can take time, patience and more understanding to get a grasp on. It’s something you can learn how to do and that will go smoother if you ease up on yourself. In terms of actionable steps you can take, Vanessa said it’s all about self exploration summed up in one word.
Vanessa:
Masturbation is the absolute best way to just explore your body and get a sense of what does my body respond to? What does it not respond to? Really playing around with lots of different kinds of stimulation is the best way to get there.
August (narration):
But what if you have mastered solo play orgasms, but you aren’t experiencing the ones you would like to during partnered sex? This week’s listener question came from someone we will call Liz. She wrote this:
I’ve been on a sexual self-journey loosely for my 6 years of being sexually active with my husband but mostly in the last two or so years. I have been unable to orgasm UNTIL RECENTLY. I identify so strongly with your guests who have never had an orgasm or have low libido. I was listening to Sexual Healing and Stronger Orgasms today and identify so much with Eve that I wondered if I submitted a Q under a different name. I wish we could be friends actually!!
A month ago I had my first orgasm, clitorally, with a vibrator, while I listened to a sexy passage from an audiobook I recorded for this exact purpose. I have them weekly now and it’s great: a little buildup, a nice little release.But I want and need/deserve more. Haven’t incorporated this with my husband yet and I just don’t know how and it feels so weird! And we are 6 years into mostly doing stuff for him since I haven’t had an orgasm or could ever be even close. What are my next steps? What should I do here?
August:
Liz, I hope Eve is listening to this. And if she reaches out, I will totally put you two in touch. I’m so grateful that the show has resonated with you and oh my goodness! That’s so exciting about your first orgasm and that you’re now able to enjoy them regularly.
If I were you, I would absolutely bring that vibrator into sex with your husband. Talk to him about it first and just say, “Hey, I’ve been having this fantasy about playing with this toy with you, or masturbating together. What do you think?”
I don’t know if you’ve had conversations with him about your challenges with orgasm or not, but I also think that could really help. I bet he would be delighted that you have found a way to experience that pleasure. And I imagine he would have a blast using the vibrator on you. So maybe a little demonstration, a little play. I am so hopeful for you both.
Here is what Dr. Megan Fleming had to say:
Dr. Megan:
Liz, I am thrilled for you, because there’s so much you haven’t yet tried. And I completely understand that it feels weird even talking about having sex conversations and what might please you in bed with your husband, much less the idea of using a vibrator together. That makes complete sense, because anytime we’re doing something new, it’s out of our comfort zone. And sometimes when we’re trying things new sexually, it can be way out of our comfort zone. It’s not uncommon to feel excite-terrified. You can have a mix of really intense feelings at the same time.
Kudos to you for seeking and researching ways to own your own pleasure. And it sounds like your first orgasm was a happy little accident of what sex therapists often recommend, which is combining your own mental turn ons with the intense physical sensation of a vibrator. A vibrator, like all sex toys, is really for enhancing pleasure for both partners. And there are so many you haven’t even explored. This is what the conversation is going to be about: the ones for him, the ones for you, couple’s sex toys.
I think it’s really about getting the ball rolling in that conversation and normalizing the fact that when it comes to sex, even though we hear about it everywhere, having these frank and open conversations with our intimate partners is often challenging and we imagine the worst. Yet, when we introduce it, it’s not uncommon that our partner’s been thinking similar things and equally didn’t know how to bring it up. Almost always, these conversations go much better than we expect.
To introduce it, sometimes it’s easier to point to something external, you know: “I read in Cosmo or Men’s Health about new ways to increase pleasure in the bedroom. I’d love for you to read it and I can’t wait to discuss.”
August:
Yes, I love that. All so important.
Vanessa shared thoughts on this topic, too:
Vanessa:
I definitely get this question and I’ve been there myself. Really what it came down to for me was realizing that I was putting so much pressure on myself to orgasm from the things that brought my partner pleasure, rather than bringing into that experience, what is it that brings me pleasure? What do I enjoy?
Women who sleep with men really tend to emphasize male pleasure, if it’s something that works for the man, then it should work for the woman. And so really being able to recognize I deserve to have just as much pleasure and enjoyment as my partner in this experience and being willing to share with your partner, these are the things that bring me pleasure.
So you can do that by just talking about it by saying, “Hey, when I’m on my own, this is what my body really responds to.” You can show it to your partner, even masturbate in front of them—that can be a super sexy experience to share with your partner—and kind of coach them through it. Maybe they put their hand over yours and they get a sense of how you’re moving. Really be willing to share whatever it is that you’ve learned on your own with your partner.
*****
For more Girl Boner fun, stream the full episode up above or on your favorite podcast app.
This episode was produced and edited by me, August McLaughlin, with noise reduction by Makenzie Mizell.
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