When They REALLY Want You To Orgasm
Orgasmic Encouragement, Control, & Coercion
“YESSS!!!” “Yes, Sir!” or “I’m Trying…”
Have you ever been with a partner who really wants you to orgasm? Who wants to make you come? “Come for me.” “I’m going to make you come.” “I want us to come at the same time.”
For some people, this is a turn-on. These few words can be enough to push the arousal over the edge into ecstasy… Orgasm… YES!!! It can make the experience so much more intense!
There are many ways this can play out.
They want to please you.
It can be very exciting to be with a partner who wants to please you. They get turned on by you being turned on. They’re in service of your pleasure. Your pleasure is their priority.
They’re in control.
It can be exciting to have a partner command and take charge. To surrender to someone and be at their whim or whimsy, having them play your body, leading you to heightened or calmer states of pleasure…
You can let go.
Oh, to surrender, give in, and take no responsibility… They’re in charge. You go with the flow. You don’t need to think; you don’t need to act. You relax; you feel; you be in the moment, in pleasure.
You have permission to orgasm.
This can be really helpful for some people who find permission helpful (or a turn on) with their sexual pleasure. Shame can be an unconscious block to pleasure or orgasm, and this explicit permission and encouragement to orgasm might help overcome it.
Excitement Builds. Arousal Builds. Intensity.
Orgasmic Encouragement works very well when the people involved are open to it, when they like it, want it, and get turned on by it. Talking to encourage a partner’s orgasm can enhance their experience (and yours.) This is about mutual enjoyment and attunement. Do you both want this, including the encouragement to orgasm?
Alternatively, Forced Orgasms and Orgasmic Control is a practice that some people really enjoy — some people even say it’s their kink. In a consensual situation or relationship, one person is in control of saying when and how the other person is and isn’t “allowed” to orgasm. It can be taken to the point of developing practices and triggers (the good kind of trigger) so that a person can orgasm on command, with or without touch. (Think of a Pavlovian Response.) This can be a hot way to practice power dynamics in terms of orgasms and sex.
If everyone involved is open to, interested in, and consenting to this, it can be an amazing experience for those involved.
Informed, Enthusiastic Consent Matters.
Intentions matter. How it impacts each person matters.
Orgasmic Coercion happens overtly or subtly, when a partner feels pressure or a requirement to orgasm. This can happen when the other partner starts doing or saying things to “encourage” an orgasm to happen, if the one partner isn’t comfortable with the “encouragement,” or if they aren’t ready (or able) to orgasm when the partner wants them to.
This can be done accidentally and with best intentions (wanting to please a partner,) or with tunnel vision of extreme focus (focusing so much on the orgasms that they forget about the partner’s experience;) or it can be used as a form of control or self-serving. It can happen when one partner feels a need or sense of importance around the other person’s orgasm.
I wrote about a partner who took my pleasure as his accomplishment, as a way to prove something to himself, massaging his ego. When he was focused on my orgasms needing to happen, I felt more pressure and less pleasure.
Unfortunately, this isn’t uncommon. Orgasms are often seen as a goal of sexual encounters, or even the defining factor of “good sex.”
This ignores the fact that many people, at some point in their life, have difficulty experiencing orgasms, and some people may find orgasms easier to experience with certain activities over others.
Some people feel personal or societal expectations that their performance, sexual prowess (or masculinity, or femininity, or whatever else) is defined by their ability to cause a partner to orgasm.
Trying to find some sense of self worth or achievement through someone else’s reaction can be less about the pleasure and more about the performance.
There’s also an idealized belief that simultaneous orgasm is the way best to orgasm, or to measure how good the sex was. Coming at the same time can be incredibly enjoyable, and so can many other things…
The beliefs that “orgasms are required for good sex,” or that “simultaneous orgasms are the best ideal for sex” each take away from the possibilities of what could otherwise be fulfilling, pleasurable experiences (with or without orgasms.) Those beliefs or expectations can put stress on a person to experience orgasm.
You know what makes orgasms difficult? Stress.
The pressure to orgasm, to perform, to have the body react a certain way can take the focus away from pleasure. Those pressures might already be self-imposed, and can be amplified when a partner starts using words or other techniques to try and “make” the orgasms happen.
This has the opposite effect from what was intended, making orgasms more difficult instead of easier.
The partner can start to lose awareness of pleasures in the sensations, connection, and present moment…and bring the attention to expectations, to the possibility of letting down a partner, to not being good enough, to “failing” and so much more.
Dr. Lori Brotto, on the We Can Do Hard Things podcast, talked about a study where half of women had recently experienced orgasmic coercion (manipulation, pressure, or physical acts to try to force her to orgasm). Dr. Brotto also discussed how some women have trouble reaching orgasm because they might be too focused on whatever is going on in their heads, and not as connected to their bodies, sensations, or pleasure.
If each partner is so concerned about a “requirement” to orgasm, everyone in the experience can lose out on pleasure: the person expected to orgasm, the partner trying to cause the orgasm, and even a solo person who defines the quality of their experience by their ability to orgasm.
The truth is: sexual pleasure doesn’t require orgasm. Removing the pressure or expectation to orgasm can open up possibilities to enjoy pleasure in so many more ways, and to connect with one’s body and partner in other ways. It’s through these connections with pleasure, body, and partner that people can relax into pleasure. Relaxation and pleasure lead to more openness to exploration…and more likelihood of orgasms…
There’s nothing wrong with Orgasmic Encouragement, Orgasmic Control or Forced Orgasms if all those involved are into the practice (at that time.) I’m not going to “yuck someone else’s yum” or to judge something that people want to do — I encourage and celebrate what works for people, and there are times when Orgasmic Encouragement has worked well for me and my partners.
But where consent is missing, that’s a problem. This is a great opportunity to check in with yourself about what you like and want, and to check in with your partner(s) about what they like and what they want. Remember: preferences and desires can change… what’s great one time might not be as wonderful another time.
Informed, enthusiastic consent is sexy.
Informed, enthusiastic consent is a YESSSSS!!!!!!
