I have always been curious and adventurous. When I was single and dating lots of men, I wasn't necessarily looking for love. The physical connection was a source of physical pleasure and satisfaction and sometimes served as a weapon. I'd be dating someone casually, and he'd develop strong feelings for me. I'd respond, “Oh, this was just for fun.” I knew it was something a woman wasn't “supposed” to do, and I was not interested in playing into that narrative. I leaned into it even more, wanting to shake the world up. So, it wasn't as much a weapon against men as a weapon against societal expectations, although there were also times that I hurt people.
At some point, though, wielding this weapon became exhausting. I wanted more from my life, so I sought a bridge between intimacy and spirituality. I had experienced some trauma that needed healing. I started investigating practices exploring spirituality while allowing us to be human. I'd had several serious relationships with guys who broke up with me because they felt emasculated by my hunger. They couldn't keep up with what I wanted and felt they couldn't satisfy me. After I'd received this comment a few times, it made me wonder about myself. Not that I felt I should be ashamed of my appetite, but I became curious about how I was impacting people and leaving them disempowered.
So, when my current partner, Greg, started saying he felt pressured, I took a good look at myself. It was enlightening to discover that my hunger was not just about physical intimacy but was serving as a substitute for what I was looking for: connecting with people on a deep spiritual level. I didn't know how to fulfill that need or how to explain it to Greg, but I knew it was something I needed to work on.
Quite often, if you go to a therapist about intimacy issues, you end up talking about stuff like scheduling, which does not address the core of the problem. It is not a logistical conversation. It is a heart-based conversation. So, Greg and I struggled to find the right resources to help us create the breakthrough we both wanted. Someone I knew and trusted told us about Orgasmic Meditation, describing it as a meditation practice. As somebody who does spiritual work, I thought that it was brilliant. Why didn't I think of that? I was afraid that Greg wouldn't want to do it or that it might be too much, too soon, in our relationship. But I hoped it would open up new possibilities for us.
Even though I was the more adventurous, Greg initiated our OM practice. I am slow-moving, slow to change, and attached to my comforts while he gets us organized. He was the one who said, “Okay, we're setting up the nest, and I'm gonna stroke your clitoris. We're gonna do this.” I have a lot of respect for that part of him, although, at times, I used to take it as a criticism, as if he was saying, “Let me help you because you're not doing enough.” OM has helped me be more at ease in those cases and willing to accept his offer. A level of gratitude and spaciousness has opened up in me.
When we set up the nest of pillows for our first OM, it was in a bedroom with barely enough space on the floor for a yoga mat. I spent the first few minutes of the session stressing over how much stuff I had in the house. But once the practice got going, the world disappeared. In the grounding step, when his hands pressed down on my thighs, I felt present in my body. Then there was the noticing step, where the stroker describes what he sees of the strokee's genitals, and that was a moment of letting go into trusting him to see, knowing it was fine to let myself be seen. For us at the time, OM was the only practice that created such a pure level of presence and connection.
I tend to want people to be mind-readers. I used to expect my lover to sense what I needed, and some men did intuitively know. I would lose patience and never have seen them again if they didn't. But here I was with a man I loved, and our bodies weren't communicating the way I thought bodies were supposed to communicate. The OM practice of asking for adjustments and vocalizing clearly to get the kind of stroke I wanted was alien to me, but because I enjoyed this partnership, I was open to the lesson. I learned that it's okay if somebody cannot read your mind, and telling them what you want is fine. I saw this kind of communication as an essential aspect of partnership.
In one particular OM, I felt a sensation from him that I knew wasn't just his sensation but was him feeling my sensation. It was so exciting because I had been hungry to find ways to help him get out of his head, and I couldn't do it. I seemed to make his anxiety and self-judgment worse. But at that moment, in the OM practice, I felt we were onto something that was getting him into his body and tuned into my body in a way that I could never have explained to him.
OMing gave me the sense of deeper connection I was craving. Having a partner who was fully present and responsive to my needs was nourishing. After a while, we were OMing so much that it became our exclusive connection. We didn't have the time or the bandwidth to do both. Then, we decided we'd better take a break from OM or have no other aspect of our lives together. The level of connection, the level of body and spirit awareness that had opened up, was something we had not experienced together.
Later, we went back to OMing, and over time, it seemed like the practice put us in more sync in so many areas of our life together. Nowadays, we often finish each other's sentences. Sometimes, we sneeze at the same time, laugh the same way, or take the same type of breath at the same moment. There's also something to be said for having our little secret as a couple, that we meditate by him stroking my clitoris. It helps strengthen our bond. We aren't OMing regularly these days. But talking about it makes us want to ask him to OM with me right now.
