Tuesday, January 3, 2012

Rocks Off

The inestimable Taylor V. Donovan asked me to stop by today to discuss orgasms, specifically the male experience of orgasms which (if our world is any indication) is different from female experience of same.

Any guy who knows his way around his willy tell you that climaxes can vary widely in intensity and pleasure from minute to minute. Getting off can feel as functional as blowing your nose, but it can also be cataclysmic and mind-bending. Context and content change everything! Thanks to Mother Nature, ejaculation feels good and the orgasm which usually accompanies it is never unwelcome. Endorphins feel good, yo. In fact, they are literally chemical enjoyment evinced by love, excitement, spicy food, love and the Big O.



Traditionally (and in most cases) men achieve climax by direct stimulation of the penis and women by direct stimulation of the clitoris. Okay, so that’s the majority. Anyone who has gotten a little more adventurous can attest that there are lots of ways to reach climax which don’t involve direct genital stimulation: less common yes, but the more powerful for their rarity. And let’s face it: while we can all grab a burger at McDonald’s, they are not the best or beefiest options.

In my experience, men tend to be a little more literal and straightforward about such things. It stands to reason: their primary reproductive tackle is on the outside so they tend to see great value in the external appurtenances of arousal and release. In males, orgasm usually accompanies ejaculation, but not always. And unless you’re talking about guys willing to push several envelopes, it’s a long haul from rubbing one out to hands-free fireworks. Can men get there? Sure. Will they? Depends on the guy, now doesn’t it?

Oh! And for the record, guys CAN have multiple orgasms, but by all accounts (and my own experience) they seem to be quite unlike female multiples. For one thing, ensuing ejaculations can become more strained and painful…subsequent orgasms more overwhelming and less pleasurable. The pleasurable return diminishes as energy (and jizz) gets expended, making the lucky shooter less relaxed and more drained, literally and figuratively.


What about orgasms in romance?

Male pleasure (in life and in fiction) is above all things a spectacle: tangible arousal, visible desire, palpable release. That makes sense: men CANNOT fake climax in the same way because their pleasure proves itself so their orgasms prove certain things to the other characters and their readers. Readers of romance like their heroes larger than life. For romance heroes, orgasms become the external observable proof of erotic fulfillment…the exclamation point on the sexual sentence. So of course, if you read a lot of romance fiction, male climax take on an elastic cornucopia quality: bigger, harder, wetter, longer. Factor in the exponential virility of your average M/M and the homo-gasms can get reDONKulous. Sometimes sultry, sometimes silly… and (as we all know) a fine line dividing the two.

For any male, the fireworks are more than just visible pleasure; during orgasm, an electrochemical tsunami and muscular quakes short-circuit the male anatomy. Yes there is (usually) gonna be a sticky spot generated, but there is also internal peak that gets scaled, not always in straight lines. That’s worth remembering both for writers creating fictional men and lovers bedding real ones. Men are more than spooge dispensers and the male climax can cover an extraordinarily complex landscape for folks who know what the hell they’re about. :)


Cookie cutter pop shots are a pornographic myth for men AND (I assume) women. The time and timing of orgasm changes the experience drastically and with a degree of finesse climax can be sculpted into something unforgettable. Different men seek, achieve, and experience climax very differently. As a man ages, sexual responses change; the volume of semen and duration of orgasm diminishes in all sexual activity. At the same time experience and exploration can radically change the quality and quantity of pleasure wrung from all kinds of intercourse.

Let me be the one to say it: people often claim that men think about only one thing. I’d change that to “PEOPLE think about only one thing and they call it by different names.” And while an inarticulate guy might tell you he just wants to “get off” you might ask yourself what he wants to “get off” of. We are not insects and our climaxes are as singular as anything else about us, regardless of gender or generalization. :) Love happens when we find the romance in the wet spot and the wet spot in the romance.

Note: Damon Suede’s book Hot Head is currently in the semifinals for Best Romance of 2011 over at Goodreads. It is the only M/M novel so nominated and is up against titles by Nora Roberts, J.R. Ward, Nalini Singh, and Gena Showalter. If you’d like to see a gay romance claim that spot please take a moment to give it your vote.

Books:
• Grown Men from Riptide Publishing

~Damon Suede

Note: This blog has been re-posted from Chicks & Dicks

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