How Can I Tell My Partners To Stop Waiting For My Orgasm?

Q

I’m very happily single currently, and having lots of fun sex with new people as I explore all kinds of new kinky things!!!!! Yay! One problem keeps coming up, though: for me, orgasms aren’t an expected part of a sexual encounter. I usually have to be super comfy with someone to cum with them. I enjoy sex whether or not cumming is involved. But I find disclosing this to people can kill the vibe. Or they push for a way to change it, saying “What if you touch yourself while I fuck you?” or something along those lines. Cool invitation! But I’m not asking them to help me get there, I’m asking them to accept that I might not, and not to focus on that during our encounter.  Usually I will disclose shortly into the beginning of the encounter, and I’ll say it as sexily as I can in the moment!  But how should I be disclosing this to people to maximize FUN and minimize UGH? I don’t want to kill the vibe by being straightforward as I have been, but I also worry that eventually me not cumming WILL kill the vibe without a heads-up. There is of course pretending to cum, but I left those patriarchal sexual expectations in my past for a reason!

A:

Summer: Hey OP. Are you me? Because this is me. And it’s something I navigate in every new sexual engagement. While I greatly appreciate the impetus to make sex pleasurable all the time, our broader dating pools have not come to terms with the fact that orgasm isn’t everyone’s primary or even attainable goal.

You’re doing the basics right already. You’re mentioning this to new partners at an appropriate time and trying to guide them away from the potential effect it can have on their self-esteem when you don’t orgasm. Like you, I’m not fond of the idea of faking orgasms. I’d much rather live a slightly disappointing reality than a satisfying lie, but that’s my morality talking. What I’d add to your repertoire of tools is to swing the topic from the absence of your orgasm to the presence of your pleasure elsewhere. Place your partners’ focus on the ways you can be pleased and you absolutely love to be touched. Guide their mouths and hands. Gently switch positions into something more favorable to you if they start aiming for your orgasm. Walk them through things that you enjoy and express it verbally – in sighs, moans, and words.

Basically… give them clear-cut cues of your enjoyment when they’re pursuing things you enjoy, and nudge them away from the orgasmic goal. If they can’t figure that out, then the problem is definitely on them and not for you. There do exist people whose self-esteem hinges on the ability to make others orgasm. There are partners who won’t listen to your bodily expertise. Absolve yourself of their foolishness. They’re just not a good fit for you.

Nico: I’m gonna come out on the other side here and say that if you’re in a casual situation where you don’t anticipate having sex with that person again, you can also just fake an orgasm to make it easier on yourself. You’re supposed to enjoy things, too, and if you find yourself having sex with someone who just doesn’t get it, I think it’s a gray area, but it’s fine.

Besides that, though, I think a fun move when hooking up for the first time (and later on, too, for reminders) is for each of you to share what you find hot before having sex. It sounds like you’re already having some conversation at the top of the encounter, but if the information about your orgasm is a bullet point amongst several others that can help you and your partner have a hotter time, it places less weight on that particular piece of information.

Riese: I’m going to be bold here and also agree with Nico — if it’s just a one-night stand with someone you’re not interested in for anything long term, I think you can just fake it. I’m in a similar situation as you, where the chances of it happening with a one-night stand are approximately zero, but I also found people often aren’t that inquisitive if you’re clearly having a fantastic time regardless. Often people will simply assume you came but won’t literally ask, especially if you’re providing lots of active feedback about how good whatever they are doing feels. It’s definitely easier to get away with when topping. But I know what you mean there is often the moment when they say “I wanna make you come” moment and what do you do with that (besides say “no I wanna make you come”), and I guess I don’t really know but personally, I find it SO annoying when someone won’t let go of that expectation, like it often feels like it’s about ego because like if you really wanna make someone feel good, listening to their explanation of their own desires and expectations and believing what they say is a great way to make someone feel good! As opposed to pushing them towards a process that they’re expressed disinterest in pursuing (e.g., the “What if you touch yourself while I fuck you?” approach).

How Do Y’all Develop Your Writing Practices?

Q

I love to write, and I’m a good writer when I can get words on the page. I like my work, my friends give me genuine positive feedback, and I’ve had work published in a couple literary magazines. I also like the act of writing while I’m doing it– it’s one of the most fun things I do.

Despite all this, I have never been able to build a consistent writing practice. I’ll write for hours every day for a week or two and then I won’t for two or three months. It doesn’t feel very sustainable, and I’m so jealous of (for example) my friend K who has 1000 words every single day without fail since we were 16. I have so many half-finished projects that I ran out of steam on and now can’t bear to look at. I’m considering getting an MFA in fiction so that I have to learn to write consistently, but that feels a little drastic!

How do you make writing every day a habit? Thanks for the advice.

PS: I have ADHD, so advice directly pertaining to that would be appreciated!

A

Summer: A writing instructor I was working with all the way in high school once pushed me out of writer’s block by telling me to intentionally write the worst story I possibly could. As in, break every norm and rule of ‘good’ writing. Write garbage on purpose. Because even putting your brain into that makes you think ‘like a writer’.

My general advice is that any writing no matter how inconsistent is worth something. All writing is valuable as long as you’re willing to go back, re-read and find areas of improvement. A half-written poem can give great insights into pacing and structuring that are transferable to fiction. The vocabulary you build in fiction is applicable to reporting.

On the ADHD side, all I can say is that it’s possible to wield some of the excitement and fixation that comes with ADHD as a tool. If you’re able to gently unshackle yourself from the idea of ‘completing’ projects or hitting a strict routine, writing in unstructured ways that appeal to you in a particular moment will also keep you writing. Yes, you may accumulate a mountain of unfinished works, but those skills are being honed and you can return to polish those works if you ever need to refine them into a submission.

Kayla: Here is a quote excerpted from a newsletter by my friend, the brilliant writer Laura van den Berg: “A routine is not a rigid list of requirements; it is a spectrum of activity that can be adapted as needed. Which is to say that routine is less about the specific actions taken and more about a steadiness of presence. Routine is a form of self-hypnosis, a way to imagine ourselves as capable of whatever feat we are attempting. Every time we abide our routine we put a stone in the path to the place we are trying to reach.” In fact, you should probably just read the full piece, titled Against Motivation.

I actually teach an entire course built around this idea, but your writing practice should not feel restrictive or impossible to accomplish. If setting the goal of writing every day doesn’t work for you, it doesn’t work for you! Instead of forcing yourself to do it, you should focus on finding a practice that DOES work for you. Just because “write every day” is common advice does not mean it is the only way to be a writer. You do not have to write every day to be a writer.

Recently, when I was at a writing residency, I did write every day, because that was what I was there to do. That said, I did not set specific word count goals for myself, because I am not a word count goal writer. I find the setting of word counts limiting. Some days, I can write 2k+ words; other days, I write maybe 200 but I really give that 200 my full energy. While at the residency, I would write my plan for the following day every evening. I would block off chunks of time to work on my novel, but rather than writing “write” or “write novel” in those chunks of time on my schedule, I wrote: “novel work.” This could include actual writing of the draft, brainstorming in my journal, writing about my process, READING, or even going on a long walk to THINK about the work. This allowed myself to be flexible about what exact type of work I was doing.

I find that a lot of the lessons I’ve learned in strength training and physical fitness goals can be easily applied to writing. My strength coach is constantly telling me to do my best when lifting. When sitting down to write, you shouldn’t pressure yourself to meet strict goals like 1k words a day; you should do your best. We’re all humans with limited capacities and busy lives. You can’t give 100% every day —it’s not possible. Maybe you can give 80% on Monday but only 20% on Tuesday. That’s fine! Don’t let the fact that you can “only” give 20% on Tuesday stop you from giving it! 20% is better than 0%!

Nico: Summer’s suggestion reminds me of working with this one boss who would either write something she called “crappy copy” for me or who would ask me to do so for her, before we went back and forth making improvements and edits. One thing that’s helped me when stuck in writing ruts is to embrace a complete lack of perfectionism, to cultivate a kind of contempt for a polished end product.

Also, if you have ADHD, consistency might not be your thing. If you work in spurts when you’re excited and have an idea, then you work in spurts. As for the half-finished projects – this is where something like a self-imposed writing residency would be useful for you. Once you’re out of your normal environment, with none of your usual distractions (don’t bring them!) and having already invested time and potentially money into it, now you’ll have a weight to the need to write that hopefully will make it harder to avoid. I don’t think you need to worry about writing every day, I think you need to concentrate on breaking those multi-month streaks of no writing down. Give yourself a maximum day limit you are allowed to go without writing — maybe three days is enough to deal with any life or work stuff that may unexpectedly come up, for example. Now, you have to at least write 1 day out of every 4. With strategies like this, nothing is tied to days of the week or times of day — it leaves flexibility for you to get into an irregular rhythm that works for you. If deep work is your thing, then what’s the difference ultimately between writing 4,000 words every 4 days and consistently writing 1,000 every day? Also, I agree with Kayla that word counts are rather unimportant and limiting. If using them as a goal motivates you, then great, but if it only intimidates or hinders you — leave word counts to die in the dirt and never look back. This is also just an example format — I just want to invite you to explore what could be alternative and less outwardly consistent, yet equally effective structures for yourself.

Finally, also as an ADHD-haver, one thing I’ve found to be wildly successful as a tactic is co-working at a coffee shop or other second location that is not anyone’s home. Would your friend who writes every day be willing to sit down with you and co-work? If you’re not in the same location, you can also do this over a video call. Usually, other folks, even if they don’t benefit as much from the body-doubling aspect of co-working, are quite happy to have some company.

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