The sexual fulfilment of women is vital for harmony in love relationships, in the family and for the well being of society as a whole. I can even go so far as to say the future of our planetary well being depends on it.

It is one of my favourite topics, and I have dedicated 37 years of personal and professional research to its study.

Statues on Khajuraho temples

There are five factors which are important to understand when discussing women’s sexual fulfilment.

1) Sexual anatomy
2) Cycles
3) Sensorial orientation
4) Chakra orientation
5) Spiritual potency

I have written a book called “Divine Sexuality” which goes into great detail on the subject of both women’s and men’s sexuality. This article highlights some of the key points that are essential for women. I refer to the vagina as the “yoni”, the Tantric word for the female genitals, meaning “sacred place” and the penis as “lingam,” meaning “wand of light”.

Sexual anatomy

Did you know that:

· The clitoris has 3000 – 5000 nerve endings, all devoted to pleasure, connected to pleasure centres all over her body.

· The hood of the clitoris is attached to the clitoral bulbs, which reside inside the body and become engorged and erect when the woman is sexually excited. The hood is also connected to the vaginal lips, both inner and outer which also become engorged and erect during excitation.

· Orgasmic contractions happen inside the yoni, but the intensity can vary, depending on the degree of excitation and arousal in the whole body, thus giving rise to the terms: ‘whole body orgasm,’ vs ‘localised clitoral orgasm.’

· In general, women require a minimum of 20 minutes of sensual and sexually stimulating ‘warm up’ to reach a threshold from where sexual orgasm becomes possible.

· After sexual orgasm, in general, a woman remains on the plateau, ready for more orgasms, for at least 20 minutes.

· Women are capable of experiencing multiple orgasms, (one orgasm feeding into the next in an unbroken river of ecstasy,) as well as chain orgasms, (one orgasm following the next with short gaps in between.)

· The yoni of a woman is not very sensitive unless she is highly aroused. This is because it is the birth canal, and if it was as sensitive as the clitoris and clitoral bulbs, it would be excruciating to give birth.

· When the woman is highly aroused, the yoni lengthens and expands, giving rise to a craving to be penetrated by her lover.

· The yoni, being versatile, forms herself to fit the size of the lingam which is penetrating her (within reason according to anatomical proportions of both partners.)

· The way a woman desires to be stimulated sexually, or to stimulate herself, stems from how she has learned to experience sexual pleasure. In most cases, her sexual empowerment is dependent on how she has trained herself to respond sexually during masturbation.

· A woman is capable of multiple orgasms into her 90’s and beyond.

I have worked with countless women in groups and individual sessions and have found that in general, women carry a great deal of misconception around the subject of orgasm. Because of this, women tend to walk around with shame and secret suffering which they may even hide from their lovers. One example of this is that 50% of women fake orgasm.

For this sorry state of affairs, there are multiple factors to blame. One important factor is that Freud made an erroneous statement, which had no basis in scientific fact. He observed that there are two types of women, the ‘infantile’ and the ‘mature.’ He stated that the ‘infantile woman’ needs clitoral stimulation in order to orgasm, while the ‘mature woman’ orgasms from penetration alone. Even today, this erroneous statement haunts the lives of millions of women with unnecessary suffering.

Masters and Johnson scientifically tested this statement in a clinical study. Electrodes were attached to women who said they reached orgasm from penetration alone, and their sexual response was carefully monitored as they were engaged in sexual intercourse. It was found in each case that the women were actively stimulating their clitoris, through the friction of the lingam rubbing on the clitoris, or by the clitoral hood stimulating the clitoris with the friction of intercourse.

It was later verified in the groundbreaking research of Masters and Johnson that the three elements – clitoral arousal, sacral nerve, and vaginal contractions – are necessary for female orgasm to take place.

Another factor which has had a great deal of influence is that a large majority of women in Western society did not even know they were capable of orgasm until the 1900s. It was thought that marriageable women did not enjoy sex, but simply put up with it as a chore in order to please their husbands or to get children. People believed that only fallen women, or prostitutes, had pleasure in sex. Therefore, many women carry the ancestral belief that they have no right to pleasure and are meant to have sex to please their partner, never daring to ask for what they want and need. The healing for this is for women to practice self-pleasuring, (masturbation) and discover what you like and how you like it sexually and then to communicate this to your partner. If you do not know and love your own body and way to pleasure, your partner will not know either.

Because women have not been aware of their own capacity for pleasure, when the women’s movement began, the direction many women took was to deny their feminine nature, to copy men and compete to ‘do it better.’ Sexually this has been disastrous. Women’s sexual response is diametrically opposite to men’s. This is why we are complementary. Just imagine the positive poles of two magnets trying to meet. They cannot. They oppose each other energetically. However, if you have a receptive pole and a positive pole of the magnets coming together, they glue together with great eagerness. Opposites attract.

Another very important factor is education and the lack of it. Because of the destructive idea propounded by some spiritual traditions, that spiritual fulfilment is only possible if one denies sex, there is a great lack of any kind of intelligent sexual education. And because our species’ survival depends on sex, of course our bodies make it a priority.

In our present so called sexually free society, there is still a great lack of sex education, and yet the internet and other media are full of pornography. I have nothing against sexually explicit media, if it remains true to men and women’s real experience and potential. Pornography, however, is for the most part simply idiotic and gives false impressions to people as to what is ‘expected’ during sex. It tends to psychologically and emotionally damage the impressionable young who are trying to learn about this most vital subject.

An exquisitely beautiful young woman came to my Tantra course. She admitted in private that she was a high-class prostitute, in great demand, but inside she felt nothing but disgust and had never known orgasm (though she was good at faking it.) I asked her about her formative years and how she found out about sex. At age nine she was introduced to pornography. The first film she saw was one in which humans were having sex with animals. She was so horrified that she went into complete shock and shutdown, and this psychological and emotional trauma, became a catalyst towards her profession as an unhappy prostitute. Luckily this story has a happy ending. I was able to offer healing to her, and subsequently, she found a Beloved and discovered the joy of orgasm.

In my groups, it gives me great joy to empower the feminine in women, helping women to become aware of their power and potential, not only in orgasm, but in many other areas of life.

Cycles

Women are keepers of the tides of life, of all life cycles. This is so because we are bound to the moon, and to the ever-present facts of birth and of death inherent in our womb. When we carry a child in the womb, the gestation of this child moves through each aspect of evolution. This means we are the keepers of the whole history of evolution, of all of life. When we are not carrying a child, and are in the cycles of menstruation, each month we go through creation and de-creation. As the lining of the womb moves out with the menstrual flow, our hormone levels drop and we go through a small death. When we begin awakening to the awesome power inherent in being woman, and we link this to our natural yearning to nurture and love, we will naturally be drawn to become the custodians of life in all its aspects. When a woman is not aware of her feminine power, inherent in her womb, she simultaneously is in denial of her full potential for ecstasy.

I have met many women who believe that if they go into their full orgasmic potential, it will frighten the men they are with. And so they hold back, not wanting to rock the boat. Our full orgasmic potential is intimately connected to how we are with our womb, with our life cycles and with our monthly menstrual cycle.

Deepest ecstasy in orgasm arises when the womb is energetically open and the woman is passionately in love with being the womb of all of life. To help support this, learn to breathe and to make sounds during sexual arousal. Learn to love your belly, and to love your menstruation. Keep a diary of your cycles and note down how you feel, sexually and emotionally, during the different phases of the moon cycle. If your man is afraid of your sexual ecstasy, he would benefit from going to a men’s group, a Shamanic group, or a Tantra group, where he can experience a rite of passage into full manhood.

Sensorial orientation

To be sexually fulfilled, as women, we need to honour the fact that, in general, we need to open up through the kinesthetic sense. We need touching, cuddling, emotional security and feelings of all kinds. Of course, women also have highly developed visual, auditory or olfactory senses, but for moving into sexual contact, we need to own and be comfortable with our potential for emotional fluidity.

During sexual play, when a woman’s womb centre opens, she will have a tendency to laugh or to cry. This is a signal that her yoni is now open and ready for penetration. It is common that the woman cries as she climaxes, and unfortunately this is often at the very end of the sexual act. For the sex to be more fulfilling, she needs to open up her emotional flow before penetration. This can happen very easily by the partner placing his relaxed hands on her belly and just being present with her womb centre. Within five or 10 minutes, she will most likely find herself either laughing or crying, and this is a signal that all is flowing.

Chakra orientation

The seven main chakras are a vast subject by themselves. In brief, chakras are energetic centres in the body, which mirror cosmic principles and support each person to become a full spectrum rainbow, merging into white light. Each chakra has a masculine or positive aspect or a female, receptive aspect. In the male and female bodies, the chakras are complementary opposites. This means that, in the same way you experience orgasm at the first chakra (sex centre), you can also experience orgasm at the second chakra (lower belly), or at the third chakra (stomach area), and so on up to the seventh. The male and female chakras fit together like lock and key, as complementary opposites. In the male, the first chakra is positive and outgoing, while in the woman, it is receptive. In the second chakra, the belly, the woman is more outgoing, while the male is receptive. In the third chakra (stomach), the man is outgoing and woman is receptive. In the heart chakra, the woman is outgoing and the man is receptive. In the throat chakra, the man is outgoing and the woman receptive. In the sixth chakra (centre of brain in line with the third eye), the woman is outgoing and the man is receptive. In the seventh chakra, at the crown of the head, male and female merge beyond duality.

A very important key for the woman to be sexually fulfilled is for her to awaken to her positive polarities in the chakra system. She needs to own and celebrate her womb centre (second chakra) as described earlier. She needs to nurture her capacity for unconditional love in the fourth chakra (heart centre), and she needs to open up and use her intuition, held at the sixth chakra (third eye centre). When this happens, she will automatically become open to her lover in her receptive centres, and he will at last feel he is being fully received. When we feel disempowered, we do not open to the partner, but rather protect ourselves. When you awaken the power and potential of your positive chakras, you will shine and feel ready to absorb the gifts given by the male principle.

Spiritual potency

As the woman is the womb for all of life, she is also the birth giver and the spiritual mother for this world. If she is weak, and unaware of her own ecstasy, she will give birth to a world based on a collapsed feminine, and an over aggressive masculine, as we see today. This situation can change very rapidly if women everywhere can open up to their own divinity and power.

It has happened at least twice in history, that two warring tribes came to almost instantaneous peace when the women of both tribes joined together and refused to have sex with their men until the war was stopped and a peace treaty was agreed. The woman’s power is in her capacity to become love and to radiate that love into each and every aspect of life.

During orgasm, it has been found by scientists who put electrodes in the brain that a woman’s brain completely shuts down. No-mind is a highly prized spiritual state because it takes us beyond past or future, into the present moment. When a woman is moving into orgasmic ecstasy, she can easily use this state to access what is known as Mahamudra, meaning ‘the great gesture which arises out of the orgasm with the universe.’ A woman’s orgasm can be so powerful and full bodied that it can propel her into Samadhi (universal consciousness). Having known her capacity for ecstasy, she then wants to bless the whole world. She becomes a devotee of life.

Sarita in Khajuraho

Read Sarita’s profile, her extraordinary childhood that takes her single-pointedly to India and then to Osho. www.tantra-essence.com

Article first published in Paradigm Shift, 49, Nov-Dec 2010 – www.paradigmshift.info