The Whole Lesbian Sex Book by Felice Newman Read Free Book Online

however, will help you create the sex life you want. Try masturbating in front of a full-length mirror, or with a hand mirror between your legs. As you stimulate yourself, you’ll get to see your particular sexual responses in action. You can become acquainted with the visual cues of your sexual arousal. (You can even insert a speculum—available from www.The-Clitoris.com , women’s health centers, and some sex toy stores, such as Toys in Babeland (see chapter 20, Resources)—and grab a flashlight to see what you look like on the inside when you’re turned on.)
    During arousal , your heart rate and blood pressure increase. You may feel warm. A sexual flush may appear over your face and chest. The breasts enlarge. Your nipples become erect; later in arousal, your areolas swell and your nipples may seem to retract. The clitoris engorges with blood and becomes erect, growing bigger. The inner labia swell and darken in color. You get wet. Your vaginal walls lubricate and the whole vagina expands. The uterus engorges and lifts, expanding up to twice its normal (not pregnant) size. Your vagina opens. Your sphincter muscles may relax or contract.
    A friend told me that women once wore lipstick to symbolize the sexual engorgement of their labia during arousal—a reasonable explanation of why women who wore bright red lipstick were said to be “loose.” Whether or not the story is true, my friend (happily) now can’t look at a woman’s freshly painted lips without thinking of the engorgement—and resulting darkening and deepening of color—during arousal.
    The plateau stage is the state of peak excitement right before orgasm. The vagina opens up and balloons out. The clitoral glans is tucked inside its hood. The areolas continue to swell. You may notice that you can take more nipple stimulation. Muscle tension increases all throughout the body, as the heart rate continues to climb. You find yourself breathing faster and deeper. The sex flush becomes more pronounced. The labia minor may turn a deep red or wine color. The vagina opens into what’s called the orgasmic platform. The outer one-third of the vagina further congests with blood.
    Orgasm is a series of involuntary muscle contractions in the vagina, uterus, and anus, releasing the blood that’s been stored in the erectile tissues of the genitals. Most sources report that the contractions occur at a rate of slightly more than one per second; generally an orgasm will involve anywhere from just a few contractions to 10 or 15 of them. Of course, the intensity and duration of the orgasm will vary greatly. During orgasm the heart rate peaks. Breathing is faster. (More on orgasm in the next chapter.)
    Resolution is the stage in which the body returns to its nonaroused state. You experience a release of tension. The heart rate and breathing return to normal. Sex flush disappears, nipple erection fades, the glans of the clit once again protrudes from its hood. The labia return to their nonaroused color and size.
    Do women get “blue balls”—that painful state of unresolved arousal that men talk about? Yes—if after reaching a very high degree of arousal you don’t come, it takes a longer time for the vascular congestion to ease, which can be uncomfortable—or exciting!

    Sexual Response over a Lifetime
    Just as your experience of arousal and orgasm does not necessarily follow Masters and Johnson’s four-stage model, your experience of sexuality over the course of your lifetime will not necessarily follow the linear model we’ve been given.
    And what linear model is that? As children we are supposed to be asexual. Then we hit puberty and get interested in boys. (If we get interested in girls, we must be confused.) Our sexuality matures: we like dick—but not too much and only when we feel an emotional connection to it. Then we hit menopause and the sexual portion of our lives ends with the cessation of reproductive functioning. Gender development is supposed to