Sexual Process

Masters and Johnson established the gold standard when they described the sexual response cycle as it occurs in women. By using women who could experience orgasm while fucking in public, with a real or artificial penis, they depicted the physiologic response of women to sex. To them, sex equates to sexual intercourse and, as women, we all respond to it in a precisely delineated response. Well, they were wrong. But, like Freud, their ideas hold sway and we are, once again, locked into our vaginal destiny, our copulatory mandate.

For us, the sexual response cycle is neither a response nor a cycle. We do not respond to any sexual overtures, we activate. Moreover, we do not proceed in the manner science predicts: desire, arousal, plateau, orgasm, and resolution. For most of us, desire does not enter the picture, if at all, until well into our sexual encounter and plateau is a fictitious achievement dreamed of to keep us content with a limited degree of sexual attention. Orgasm? With coitus? Dream on. As for resolution, it too is imaginative. Sure, eventually we come (ahem) to that point IF given the opportunity, but we are all multiorgasmic and resolution is a late bloomer.

We will have more to discuss later on and in our book we will address this topic in great depth, but in the interim, do not be fooled into thinking you have to "respond" sexually or that you have to follow a given cycle - it is contrived to dictate your sexual behavior and not to let you experience the full range and joy of your sexuality.

As with all our topics, we encourage you to contribute your thoughts by adding them to an appropriate Forum discussion or asking us personally.