by Chloe Crawford
Both my sister and I have a history of sexual abuse. Before Orgasmic Meditation, I spent decades dissociated from sex and my body. My first normal sexual experience, I remember feeling so detached. I was 15 and just watched everything happen in the bedroom mirror. It wasn't about pleasure, or about sexual connection, or anything like that. It was simply about clinical understanding.
I was married for 20 years, and my husband was a safe person for me. But all the same, I could never have an intimate experience without being blacked out with alcohol. If I wasn’t drunk, after sex, I always ended up crying and going into this whole weeping experience. And I thought that was normal. Needless to say, I was not physically satisfied in my marriage. I did not even know what orgasm was. And I had never experienced true deep pleasure.
I always had these imaginings about who I was as a sexual being—someone who was outside of the box and could be more explorative. But with a partner, I was rigid. I felt resigned to my fate. I couldn't soften into the feminine side of me.
After my divorce, I had a partnership with a man who helped me considerably. I had my first orgasm with him. He had to tell me that’s what happened! Unfortunately, two years into our relationship, he committed suicide, and I was left alone. I couldn’t imagine letting someone touch me. I couldn’t imagine feeling the sensation of pleasure or anything other than grief. And yet I was so hungry for intimacy and so wanted to get out of pain.
My therapist told me about Orgasmic Meditation. I contacted a woman who was teaching the practice. It didn't sound weird to me, just different. So I signed up for a training.
I felt really nervous before my first OM session but also hopeful. I remember feeling safe. It actually felt natural and normal to take my pants off with a man I didn’t know well and lie down in the nest. It wasn’t creepy or scary in the slightest. It felt healing. I do remember thinking, however, “Gosh, my sister would never do this!”
After that first OM, I felt so extremely cracked open that I couldn't even drive afterwards. It was like that for me for a long time. My heart and body felt so open.
What fascinated me then, and what I still find fascinating about the practice, is how embodied I felt and how grounded I felt, and yet at the same time, I would feel completely off the tracks and into the stratosphere. It was so incredibly sensation-based; it rocked my world. At the same time, a large part of it was that I wasn't beholden to the stroker. There was no obligation or need for reciprocation. I didn't have to behave a certain way. I didn't have to please this person or respond in a certain way. I could just experience pure sensation and focus on my body, which would shake a lot during OM—Orgasmic Meditation. I also made a lot of incomprehensible guttural sounds--these were powerful releases.
It’s not like the stroker wasn't having his own experience. He was. And it’s not like that wasn’t important. It was always beautiful to share together in the frames afterwards. But never before in my life had I ever felt like I could take up that much space as a person or a woman. During sex, I’d always been in my head, figuring out how to respond to the other person so that I could give them what they needed. With OM - Orgasmic Meditation, I let go of that. I learned just to respond or not respond … to just have my own experience. And that, in a nutshell, is what OM taught me--that I can have my own experience.
I remember the first time that I stopped an OM. It wasn't about the person. It wasn’t about anything except that I felt I needed to stop. And it was okay. I didn't feel shamed or feel like I needed to explain. And the stoker was very accepting. That’s one of the many impressive things about this practice—it’s a feminine-centric practice where I can take the space I need and not be shamed for it. It took a while to get used to that.
