into a bright stain that covers the universe, the process of that, the expanding…that’s part of it.
Act III—Moreplay: The Return to Balance
After orgasm is the resolution phase, a return to calm and the prearoused state. Men and women differ strikingly in this phase, with the former losing their erections quickly and entering into what’s known as a refractory period, an interval of time that needs to pass before he can get an erection again.
With women, it takes longer for the genitals to return to their normal state, at least five to ten minutes. Women tend not to get sleepy, their genitals don’t become hypersensitive (except the clitoral head), and they don’t experience a refractory period—with a little stimulation they’re ready to begin the process all over again.
The difference between how and men and women experience the resolution phase is what I call the “snuggle gap”: women want more interaction; men want to roll over and go to sleep. While much literature has been devoted to the “insensitivity” of men and the “neediness” of women in this respect, it’s far more effective to understand that the snuggle gap is largely the result of biology (men crash quickly after sex, women come down slowly), so don’t overanalyze,or get angry and pick a fight; instead, respect each other’s differences and compromise: fall asleep while holding her in your arms.
T here we have it in a nutshell: the narrative process of arousal. Even though the structure is universal, every story is unique. How it plays out has everything to do with the characters involved. Sometimes the story might unfold in a matter of minutes; other times it may take hours. In the Poetics, the only rule is that the action must occur “in a manner uninterrupted,” and take place within a twenty-four hour period. As Aristotle observed, “A beautiful object, whether it be a living organism or any whole composed of parts, must not only have an orderly arrangement of parts, but must also be of a certain magnitude; for beauty depends on magnitude and order.”
Scent and Sensibility
C UNNILINGUS, perhaps more than any other expression of sexuality, falls prey to the “yes, but” syndrome: YES, both men and women appear on balance to enjoy giving and receiving respectively, BUT not, it seems, without reservation. As noted in the Hite Report on Male Sexuality, almost half of all men who said they enjoyed cunnilingus were nonetheless preoccupied with issues of cleanliness and hygiene; and closely associated with those concerns were comments that women’s genitals smelled bad. A smaller percentage of men did not share these concerns, and an even smaller group of aficionados claimed to love the taste and smell. But such enthusiasts are in the minority.
Rare is the man who can share Napoleon’s steadfast ardor in savoring a woman’s cassolette (the French word for perfume box and used colloquially to describe a woman’s unique scent; the sum totalof her effluvia; her aromatic signature) and exult, free of prejudice, in the powerful rush of pheromones.
D on’t wash, I’m coming home!” (Napoleon to Josephine, on his way back to Paris from the front.)
But what about all of the women who—whether bombarded with media messages stressing the importance of feminine “freshness,” or worn down by “fish” jokes, or simply unacquainted with their own genitalia—share these preoccupations and approach their bodies with fear, shame, or even self-loathing? And cunnilingus, with its elimination of distance and its unavoidable intimacy, is often a lightning rod for unleashing anxiety.
All this fuss and hullabaloo over hygiene; and yet, in reality, a woman’s genitals are a self-cleaning system— more sanitary than many other parts of the body, including the mouth. One of the reasons a woman is often lubricated, even when she’s not aroused, is that these secretions are part of the vagina’s natural way
Act III—Moreplay: The Return to Balance
After orgasm is the resolution phase, a return to calm and the prearoused state. Men and women differ strikingly in this phase, with the former losing their erections quickly and entering into what’s known as a refractory period, an interval of time that needs to pass before he can get an erection again.
With women, it takes longer for the genitals to return to their normal state, at least five to ten minutes. Women tend not to get sleepy, their genitals don’t become hypersensitive (except the clitoral head), and they don’t experience a refractory period—with a little stimulation they’re ready to begin the process all over again.
The difference between how and men and women experience the resolution phase is what I call the “snuggle gap”: women want more interaction; men want to roll over and go to sleep. While much literature has been devoted to the “insensitivity” of men and the “neediness” of women in this respect, it’s far more effective to understand that the snuggle gap is largely the result of biology (men crash quickly after sex, women come down slowly), so don’t overanalyze,or get angry and pick a fight; instead, respect each other’s differences and compromise: fall asleep while holding her in your arms.
T here we have it in a nutshell: the narrative process of arousal. Even though the structure is universal, every story is unique. How it plays out has everything to do with the characters involved. Sometimes the story might unfold in a matter of minutes; other times it may take hours. In the Poetics, the only rule is that the action must occur “in a manner uninterrupted,” and take place within a twenty-four hour period. As Aristotle observed, “A beautiful object, whether it be a living organism or any whole composed of parts, must not only have an orderly arrangement of parts, but must also be of a certain magnitude; for beauty depends on magnitude and order.”
Scent and Sensibility
C UNNILINGUS, perhaps more than any other expression of sexuality, falls prey to the “yes, but” syndrome: YES, both men and women appear on balance to enjoy giving and receiving respectively, BUT not, it seems, without reservation. As noted in the Hite Report on Male Sexuality, almost half of all men who said they enjoyed cunnilingus were nonetheless preoccupied with issues of cleanliness and hygiene; and closely associated with those concerns were comments that women’s genitals smelled bad. A smaller percentage of men did not share these concerns, and an even smaller group of aficionados claimed to love the taste and smell. But such enthusiasts are in the minority.
Rare is the man who can share Napoleon’s steadfast ardor in savoring a woman’s cassolette (the French word for perfume box and used colloquially to describe a woman’s unique scent; the sum totalof her effluvia; her aromatic signature) and exult, free of prejudice, in the powerful rush of pheromones.
D on’t wash, I’m coming home!” (Napoleon to Josephine, on his way back to Paris from the front.)
But what about all of the women who—whether bombarded with media messages stressing the importance of feminine “freshness,” or worn down by “fish” jokes, or simply unacquainted with their own genitalia—share these preoccupations and approach their bodies with fear, shame, or even self-loathing? And cunnilingus, with its elimination of distance and its unavoidable intimacy, is often a lightning rod for unleashing anxiety.
All this fuss and hullabaloo over hygiene; and yet, in reality, a woman’s genitals are a self-cleaning system— more sanitary than many other parts of the body, including the mouth. One of the reasons a woman is often lubricated, even when she’s not aroused, is that these secretions are part of the vagina’s natural way
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