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 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. Learn much more in this week’s Girl Boner Radio episode, which is an updated replay. (I released the original version in October, 2020.)
Stream it on Apple Podcasts/iTunes, iHeartRadio, Amazon Music, Spotify or below. Or read on for a lightly edited transcript.
“Incredible Orgasm Stories – updated replay!”
First, Amberly’s story.
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 youlook 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 “new”, air quotes, partner.
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’sstory. 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.
August (narration):
The sources she was finding weren’t very reliable…or they pointed to medical articles that a lay person might have trouble understanding.
Samantha:
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.
August (narration):
Samantha’s doctor didn’t seem worried about orgasm problems, but she said it’s a common concern for many transgender women who have the surgery. Conversations with her partner inspired her to share openly about her experience, too. They both wondered:
Samantha:
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 thenI got to 24 months and I was like okay, what is going on?
August:
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 (narration):
Especially in a culture where sex ed is so limited, especially around pleasure and for queer folks and people with a vulva.
But one day, Samantha did experience orgasm, after about a year of frustration she described as a “watch pot never boils” type scenario. As more months passed, sans climax, she felt continually as though it would never happen. Which only made things more challenging.
Samantha:
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.
EDIT: August (narration):
So while she wanted it to happen, she was also trying not to fixate on it—which made her feel like her mind was twisted up, like a pretzel.
Samantha:
So for me, it was almost like giving up on it that freed it to happen. 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.
[triumphant acoustic guitar strumming]
August (narration):
Orgasms before the surgery and after were different for Samantha, and she prefers how she experiences them now.
Samantha:
Yeah [laughs], I mean 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.
[ocean waves]
August (narration):
In her article, which was published in 2016, Samantha wrote, “now when I want to orgasm, I have a routine that borders on superstition.” I was curious about that, and whether it’s stuck around.
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.
[triumphant guitar strumming]
August (narration):
Myths abound, in terms of transgender folks and sexuality—beyond just orgasms. Samantha wanted to shed light on this on, in particular:
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. 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 went. 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.
[acoustic chord riff]
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.
August (narration):
Vanessa didn’t really think much about the experience again until adulthood, when she started trying to have orgasms on purpose.
Vanessa:
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.
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 a vulva.
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.
[acoustic chord riff]
August (narration):
I love Vanessa’s advice. While you’re setting aside time to explore your own body, you could experiment with your hands or different toys, as well as a good lube. Reading or listening to erotica can also help.
If you have a vulva, you could also try OMGYes. It’s a membership-based website full of video tutorials, based on over 20,000 cisgender women about their sexual pleasure. I’m not affiliated, just a fan.
Learn more about today’s guests and their latest work at the links in the show notes.
For more Girl Boner fun, join my Patreon community for fun extras, explore past episodes and sign up for my email list for occasional updates and spicy surveys, which I often weave into upcoming episodes. You can also support the show by leaving a rating and review on Apple Podcasts (that’s the purple iPhone app) or the iTunes Store, and by letting a few friends know about it.
Thanks so much for listening.
[Outro music that makes you wanna dance!]
Psst! This episode is supported by The Pleasure Chest, my favorite place to shop for toys, lube and more to make the most of your sex life. They offer free, discreet shipping over $75 and it’s super easy to find exactly what you’re hoping for on their website—whether that’s a new vibe, dildo, cock ring or kink set. Learn more and start shopping at thepleasurechest.com. Again, that’s The Pleasure Chest at thepleasurechest.com.
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