Q&A: More Information on Breath Orgasms
Orgasm is possible without physical touch
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Q: I really enjoy your work. I love your podcast. I have a question about CAYA (which ironically enough, is the name of a diaphragm!) Where can I get more information about having an orgasm with your breath like Olivia did in the book?
A: To fill in some information for anyone who hasn’t read CAYA: Olivia is a composite character representing women with relatively sensitive accelerators and/or relatively insensitive brakes, who may have fewer barriers to accessing a wide variety of erotic sensations, but with the tradeoff that they might be more prone to using sex as a maladaptive coping strategy when they’re stressed, depressed, anxious, lonely, or repressing their rage. One of the experiences she has in the book is an orgasm without any physical touch, just her breath and her body and her attention.
The actual person behind the story of the breath orgasm was inspired by the book ESO: Extended Sexual Orgasm. It’s pretty dated and has some language that people don’t use these days, but it’s a starting place. Nowadays I send people to Barbara Carellas’s Urban Tantra: Sacred Sex for the 21st Century.
Another resource is a film called Zen Pussy: A Meditation on Eleven Vulvas. We, the viewers, get to watch eleven people with vulvas breathe their way to orgasms and it is mesmerizing, beautiful, and awe-inspiring. It doesn’t offer instructions, it just shows how it’s done.
I need to include a caveat before you go looking for more information on the internets: It's important to note that a lot of the resources for breath orgasm that you find online are… I mean… they can be problematic. They coopt religious rituals from Tantra to Taoism to Cherokee and other Native American cultures. If you’re reading about any of these and you’re not a member of that community, remember that the breath practices have been extracted from their true context. It’s like snipping a single figure from a huge tapestry and imagining it’s the whole thing. It’s not—and you strip it of its original meaning, as well as stripping the tapestry itself of the wholeness it deserves.
So when you’re learning about breath orgasms, pay attention to who the author is, relative to the culture and practices they describe. Notice whether they acknowledge the larger context. The more a resource acknowledges that larger context, the more trustworthy a resource it is.
That said, breath orgasm doesn’t belong to any particular culture, religion, or group; it’s available to anyone who lives in a human body and has the time and interest to practice. And it will take practice. It will take time and commitment. But heck, it’s a great hobby!
And it’s the kind of hobby where you can never fail and you’re never in competition with anyone else. The worst thing that can happen is you experience lots of pleasure without orgasm—and that’s a great way to spend an afternoon! The best thing that could happen, I would argue, is that you could crack something open inside yourself that allows your entire humanity to flow through you so that you experience a feeling of expansion, dissolving into the universe itself. Pretty good, right?
(Random aside: I watched a lot of baking competition shows during the holidays, and now I’m imagining an orgasm competition show, where orgasmers are challenged to have orgasms from different modes of stimulation each week—genitals, nipples, feet, culminating with the most challenging of all, the breath orgasm. Produced with humor, tongue firmly in cheek, I think it could be AMAZING. Contact me, ethical feminist porn producers, if you’re interested!)
Another place to begin is with Appendix II in Come Are You Are, which has instructions on how to have extended orgasms. To adapt those instructions to breath orgasms, just use breath and attention alone, rather than any hands, toys, etc., to generate arousal. In a context of safety and plenty of time, think about your genitals. Breathe into your genitals. Allow your genitals to warm and swell. Smile at your genitals in your mind’s eye, as you would smile watching a loved one engaged in a favorite pastime. Notice when any distractions arise, either from the outside world or from inside your head, just notice them and put them to the side for now, then return your attention to your breath and your muscles and the sensations of your body.
Start small. Don’t lie on your bed, close your eyes, and start breathing into your genitals, thinking you’re going to have an orgasm that first time. Begin with noticing that your body can experience any small degree of arousal, just through imagination and breath and attention. A few days later, try again, this time aiming for just a little bit more arousal. A few days later, a little more arousal. Exploration after exploration, get to know your erotic terrain as it lives in your body and mind.
Be curious, nonjudgmental, and patient. This is practice in going slow.
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