How Your Brain Is Hindering Your Orgasm
By Susun Weed. Posted on .
c. 2012 Susun S Weed (Expert)
Author: Down There: Sexual & Reproductive Health the Wise Woman Way
“Women can have intercourse with fire, or the steaming water of a cauldron, or with the wind.” Don Juan and the Art of Sexual Energy, Tunneshende, Bear, 2001.
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Orgasms don’t just happen in the sexual organs, they originate in the brain. What we are thinking and how we are thinking it can have a profound influence on the amount, nature, and quality of our orgasms. The thinking part of the brain, the neocortex, hinders orgasm. The hypothalamus, the feeling part of the brain, is in charge of orgasmic release. Thus, to have stronger, better orgasms, we need to find ways to get around the nasty neocortex and into the hip hypothalamus.
That tension you experience, the anxiety, and even your fear, actually start in the neocortex. “Voices” telling you to worry about this, or be afraid of that, are coming from your neocortex. This smart part of our brains is there to help us perceive and react to danger. But when it comes to kissing, sex, and orgasms, the neocortex doesn’t get the job done; it just gets in the way.
Let’s look at some easy ways to quiet the neocortex and turn off the voices of responsibility. (Don’t worry. They will be back.) There are environmental cues we can tap into, and there are the wealth of substances we can use to alter our minds and moods.
“Extending and expanding orgasm is a learnable skill.”
Sex educator Sheri Winston.
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The hypothalamus, and orgasms, are nourished by darkness, silence, and safety.
Darkness feels safe to the hypothalamus and relaxing to the neocortex, just what we want. Prepare the way for your orgasm by lighting candles and turning off the lights. The light from computers can numb the hypothalamus, so do your best to avoid looking at your smart phone or working on your computer for at least an hour before sex.
Silence pulls the plug on the talkative neocortex and opens the way for the hypothalamus to reign. Wordlessness is perhaps a better, though more awkward, way to speak about the special kind of silence I mean. This silence includes moans and loud breathing and gasps and cries and even repeated single words. This silence is filling with meaning and love and connection. It relies on glance and touch and non-verbal utterances.
