Are you clitorally focused? If so, here’s what you need to do differently – Screen Shot
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Are you clitorally focused? If so, here’s what you need to do differently

Being clitorally focused is not conducive for a total sexual experience, because then you end up neglecting the entire journey. The old thought process of repeatedly banging on the vaginal equivalent of a doorbell expecting fireworks and a grand openingas if simply knocking repeatedly was sufficientneeds to go. This type of thinking can leave partners feeling like an old Nintendo controller in the hands of an amateur gamer who only knows one combo his buddy told him about in the locker room.

Over-focusing in this way can also leave the remainder of the body cold and untouched—this includes our minds, which are big players in sexual pleasure. Building a relationship between mind and body is essentially bridging the gaps between feeling and understanding, leading with curiosity.

What does being clitorally focused mean?

Let’s think about it in layman’s terms before getting further into it. We are trying to talk about ways of reaching and maintaining a healthy sex life, and in this case, analogies can often be keys to understanding. So, being clitorally focused and single-minded is like spending Kool-Aid money but expecting fine champagne.

It’s time to take a tour down under—I’ve learned a lot in the past few years through reading, but also touching myself, like, a lot. This is fundamental to sexual experiences with your partner, because only when you know how you like to be touched, you can then show someone how to do so too. The clitoris is larger than we think and I’m not just talking about the glands that you can see externally; it expands backwards and downwards behind the labia minora and majora: these are the bulbs.

The clitoris contains spongy erectile tissue that fills with blood during sexual arousal like a penis and swells at its base. Stimulation of the clitoris can assist in helping us reach a state of arousal whereby the vaginal walls and Bartholin’s glands (located on both sides of the vaginal opening) secrete lubrication fluid. Without this fluid, penetration can be difficult and painful.

When we think about stimulation of the clitoris, it is important to note that it has many nerve endings, meaning, it’s very sensitive. However, what is often forgotten is what also surrounds the clit, which, when touched directly, can lead to a lot of other things happening simultaneously elsewhere.

The vagina, for example, will be gearing into action too. When this is overlooked, it turns into what I mean when I say ‘clitorally focused’: you are only seeing and focusing on the actual visible clitoris rather than the rest of this lovely gland. Expand your focus, widen your view, and improve your sex life.

While researching this piece, I was struck by the lack of insights and education surrounding vaginas as a whole, which explains why most of us are so focused on the clitoris. On the other hand, when you look at male literature—they talk about everything, from the perineum to the back of the ears.

What’s more to discover?

In my TikTok videos, I often talk about the triangle-shaped muscles around the vulva and the circular muscles around the anus. Try using your fingers to gently trace those triangular shapes around the vulva, clitoris and even anus. Further motions that are very pleasurable and bonding is to caress the labia vertically, which also stimulates the lower regions of the clitoris, but not directly. These motions of varying pressure and speeds (listen to your partner’s noises and body language, and always remember to ask and communicate) will help the muscle groups to get ready for greater pressure and levels of touch.

https://www.tiktok.com/@sassyrededu2/video/6952274253840452869?lang=fr&is_copy_url=1&is_from_webapp=v1

When thinking about stimulating the clitoris, you’ll want to think of all 11 millimetres of the vaginal anatomy that it occupies. You can also think about opening the labia minora and the labia majora, and touching them with your fingers with a little bit of lube (water-based, because we are water), one side of the vagina at a time. Don’t overload the sensations, take your time. Then touching the anus, making circles with the fingertips. Press, and hold. Let your partner breathe during this whole experience, we are certainly not in a hurry. If you feel like you are getting confused, get curious and keep touching the different shapes.

The cup, curtain, and wait method

Let me teach you about my own favourite method: the ‘CCW’ or ‘Cup, Curtain, Wait to get sucked in’ which I briefly mentioned in a previous article on the importance of communication. ‘Cupping’ is placing your hand on the outside of the vulva and cupping it with the shape of your hand,  and simply waiting and breathing. Place the palm of your hand on the vulva, fingers pointing towards the anus, wrist positioned where you grow pubic hair.

Curtaining is what I mentioned before: opening the ‘lips’ of your vulva, the labia minora, and gently curtaining the vulva to the vagina. This feels interesting the first few times, and my partner has commented how the feeling is akin to silk in the fingertips, and now we both crave it!

‘Waiting to get sucked in’ is placing your finger at the entrance of the vagina. By way of opening the lips, the vagina is more visible and open. Ask your partner again to breathe with you. Once the fingers are inside, let them wait there, unmoving, and allow the muscle groups an opportunity to figure each other out.

Then, move forward at any pace. The simple pausing before this essentially allows for a far more intimate experience, making it almost bonding. Clients, myself and my partner have commented that “it feels more natural, loving, fulfilling, and we are always far more aroused,” and that it “makes me feel comfortable with my partner.” By slowing down and waiting, both partners can realise that they feel more pleasure and intimacy this way.

https://www.tiktok.com/@sassyrededu2/video/6954073260229233926?lang=fr&is_copy_url=1&is_from_webapp=v1

How to have emotionally empowering sex

Through conversations I have with my monthly subscribers, we look for sex tips when really most are looking for information on “how to have safe, emotionally empowering sex” or “how to fully express our deeper selves as a human and sexual being.”

Emotional investment is a lot to ask of anyone, and so is looking to slow down with each other, it requires a demonstrated effort. Partners who are willing to slow down are ready to invest in you more emotionally, but first, they need permission to slow down, permission to not know, and permission to be imperfect.

Women typically need to be heard more, touched more intently, loved more intentionally, and seen more deeply. Slowing down with a partner is respecting the anatomy and emotions of both people. A lot of men need to hear this, but everyone needs to hear this: just slow down and ask open-ended questions about sex before you have sex. By the time you understand what each of you wants, it will feel more meaningful.

Some even express what it feels like orgasming clitorally versus vaginally. The vagina, clitoris, and mind of the partner we wish to touch are far more dynamic than just a button. Explore, ask, touch, caress, lick, taste, enjoy. Be curious, be real, and be you.

Within this scope, it’s important to note that we can’t understand pleasure through one person’s outlook, we should rather logically think that each person is different, meaning that each of us has a different experience through sensation and life. This suggests that more conversation is needed to connect. It always comes back to communication in my SassyRedEDU world.

Often, when people ask questions about anatomy, I respond by asking questions on what you know before beginning. This establishes a baseline, breaks the conversational ice, establishes trust, and gets us started. From there, we can then move ahead and create a safe zone for allso we can understand that all sexual health matters.

To conclude, open the mind with a few questions, and open the heart’s desires before even thinking about doing more. That’s the Sassy Red way! It’s not just about the anatomy, it’s also about the conversation. We all emphatically claim we know this, but this is my call to you to do it more. Because so few of us actually do.

I learned how to squirt for the first time with Kama: here’s what it feels like

Just like many other topics that revolve around sexual pleasure, squirting remains a mystified and oversexualised male fantasy, which in turn breeds misconceptions about it. Yes, squirting is real. No, there’s nothing wrong with being able to squirt—or not being able to. Isn’t it just pee? Well, it’s slightly more complicated…

That’s why—with the help of Kama, the sexual wellbeing app that places pleasure at the forefront of the conversation by focusing on the science-backed idea that pleasure is health—I went on a mission to debunk a few of the myths that surround squirting and let you in on what I learned from Kama’s Squirting 101 workshops, so that you can try your hand at it too. 

A lot has been said about squirting, both good and bad, yet most women remain confused about the whole experience. On the one hand, you have porn, which promotes the false idea that only women who can squirt are sexually liberated and that squirting comes with a merit badge of some sort. On the other hand, you’ll find women who have been shamed for being able to squirt in the first place—by uneducated partners reacting with disgust, for example. Yet squirting is also a very useful practice to flush harmful bacteria out of the urethra and reduce UTIs.

But before I take you on my own squirting journey, let me first give you the details on exactly how the Kama Method works. Don’t get me wrong, sex is great, but there’s way more to it than what we were taught in sex ed or discovered on our own while browsing through porn websites aged 17. Before launching the Kama Method, Kama’s founder Chloe Macintosh had been researching intimacy and sexuality for the past 10 years, travelling the world to meet experts and practitioners across a wide range of disciplines.

“Kama is based on the science-backed idea that pleasure is health. Our body is the most advanced technology that we will ever interact with and yet we know so little about it. We often leave it to others to make decisions about our health and sexual wellbeing, which ultimately leaves us unfulfilled. Sex therapy is mostly unregulated but, at Kama, we are working with leading experts to create the new industry standard, to address insecurities, and to educate our clients about pleasure,” Macintosh explains.

“In the midst of a pandemic, global mental health epidemic, and with stress as the number one proxy killer in the world, our mental health is more important than ever. Many societies focus on managing the pain and looking to the brain to restore balance. At Kama, however, we take a different approach to wellness and wellbeing: we use breath and touch techniques to shift the focus back to our bodies and to increase sensation. Think of it like Headspace for the body.”

 

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Une publication partagée par KAMA | Mindful Sex & Wellness (@kama.lab)

The truth about squirting

Squirting for the first time is not easy—in fact, it was probably one of the hardest things I recently had to go through. Not only because the psychological fear of being seen to have wet myself was still unconsciously holding me back, but also because the whole experience (from start to finish) was more ‘enlightening’ than I could have ever imagined. First of all, I was pretty sure I knew my body and what it liked, but when focused on trying to associate the sensation of peeing with pleasure, it’s like I went from numb to over-sensitive every two seconds. Sitting in my bathtub on a Saturday morning, I truly thought that squirting was simply not meant to be in my case.

Secondly, although I first insisted on involving my partner in the process, I realised later on that him being there only added another mental block between me and my ‘so close yet so far away squirting goal’. After a few days of trying, I became aware of the fact that if I were to truly let go of tension and memories in this area, then I needed to first go through it alone.

I am still unsure of what it says about me or my relationship, but I am glad I made the decision to do so on my own, at least for now. But even after then, breathing in and exhaling while going through the steps mentioned underneath felt somewhat off—like I didn’t know how to fully relax. So, I decided to have a bath (something I never do), and in the middle of the week on top of that! I used Espom salt—the bath salts normally recommended for athletic people suffering from sore muscles but also used by people with messed up backs, like myself—and stayed in there for close to an hour.

As I emptied the bathtub, I realised that I finally felt pretty relaxed, and that now might be my time to shine. I went through the steps once again, and even used a curved vibrator as a little helper, breathing in and out as I tried a few different motions and moved my hips slightly. That’s when it happened; an intense, almost uncomfortable sensation that I had to push through in order for it to ‘become part’ of my orgasm. After that? It just felt like the most relaxing feeling ever, but strenuous at the same time.

What truly surprised me was that, unlike what I expected, I didn’t squirt a crazy amount of liquid, and on the contrary, being in the shower made it seem pretty ‘neat’. Afterwards, because the whole moment felt so intense, I fell asleep in no time. Have I tried to squirt again since then? Not yet, as I feel I need to come to grips with my first experience before trying it again.

Enter our competition HERE to win a FREE ticket to Kama’s Squirting 101 workshops part 1 and part 2! No need to thank us, we’ve got you!

But what exactly is squirting?

At the beginning of my Squirting 101 (and one-on-one) session with Kama’s in-house sex educator Aaron, we looked at what squirting really is, where it comes from, and why it happens. Interestingly, Dictionary defines squirting as “a slang term for female ejaculation. In pornography, it usually features a voluminous, projectile stream from the vagina. Science says it’s largely just urine.”

And here we have two of the first myths I’d like to debunk. First of all, squirting and ejaculating are two different things. As Aaron explained to me, research has shown that both differ in their composition. Vaginal ejaculate comes from a woman’s urethral sponge erectile tissues and is released through her Skene’s glands (located close to the entrance of the vagina where the infamous g-spot is usually found). Squirt comes from the bladder and is released through a woman’s urethral opening when she is very aroused—yes, that’s the pee hole. So not so different from how it works with men…

While ejaculate tends to be slightly thick and white, squirt usually looks like watered-down urine, which brings me to my second point: squirt is not urine… but it is composed of diluted urine. Squirting is the act of releasing fluids via the urethra tube, but although it has the same journey urine has, squirting can happen even after the bladder has been emptied, as more liquid builds up in the bladder with arousal. In other words, no, squirt is not only composed of urine—and it is not dirty or smelly!

 

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Une publication partagée par KAMA | Mindful Sex & Wellness (@kama.lab)

Squirting 101

Now that I’ve shared my personal experience with you and explained the basics of squirting, let me get straight to the hot topic: how can you squirt? Well, I’ll stop you right there for a second.

As someone who’s always shown a strong interest in sexual pleasure in general as well as my own sexual wellbeing—duh—I, for some reason, had never pursued the idea that I could squirt too. Without even realising it, I was led to assume that squirting was reserved for women who had more than a decade’s experience in sexual activities. I like to think of myself as someone sexually open-minded, but perhaps I had already shown signs of pre-built censorship when it came to squirting.

That’s why first of all, if you wish to explore pleasurable ejaculation too, you need to be ready to learn more about yourself above all, both mentally and physically. Squirting is not about turning one knob left or pushing another one hard enough; it is about becoming aware of certain blocks that you may come across, recognising them to then overcome them in order to truly ‘let go’. Sounds complex, right? Don’t worry, I’ve got some serious Kama advice for you.

Step one: Get to know your body

Before you start claiming that you know your body like the back of your hand or that touching yourself is your number one skill, hear me out, because I initially thought the same things. But in order for you to even consider squirting, you’ll first need to identify all the anatomical parts you’ll have to play with and massage later on, and as Kama experts will further explain to you in their Squirting 101 workshops, there are quite a few places you’ll be touching.

Enter our competition HERE to win a FREE ticket to Kama’s Squirting 101 workshops part 1 and part 2! Enjoy!

Don’t be afraid to sit yourself down in front of a mirror and explore your own anatomy. My advice? Use this time to gently stimulate the different areas you’re identifying. There’s no shame in mixing business with pleasure, if you know what I mean.

Step two: Give yourself permission

This is where things get a little complicated. In order to squirt, you need to associate the sensation of releasing fluids from the urethra with arousal and pleasure, which is not an easy task. What this means is that—when you learn to remove the mental and physical blocks that most of us come across when allowing fluids to be released from the urethra, you’ll reach a point where you’ll learn to associate the feeling with arousal instead. “The idea here is to become familiar with these sensations and processes being combined,” explains Aaron.

To do so, I had to wait until I really needed to pee, and then made myself comfortable in my bathtub. Once I was all settled in, I started by touching myself gently (externally) to become more aroused. Then when I really needed to pee, I reiterated the same actions while actually peeing. By doing this, you’re teaching your body to connect the sensation of release with pleasure. 

Once that’s done, stay where you are, and continue arousing yourself to start ‘engorging’ (meaning the erectile tissues that are in the vulva fill with blood). Get yourself aroused, and start tracking your urethra tube, which begins at the bottom of the bladder, otherwise known as the neck. It extends downward, through the muscular area of the pelvic floor. From the opening of your vagina, feel along the track of the tube until you get the sensation of peeing. When you do feel like peeing while feeling aroused, push down with your pelvic floor—but don’t push hard while holding your breath, remember to focus on your breathing.

Then focus on letting yourself release fluids by simply pushing down and holding that push while you inhale and exhale. Don’t hesitate to repeat the whole exercise as many times as you need to—I know I certainly gave it a fair amount of tries!

 

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Une publication partagée par KAMA | Mindful Sex & Wellness (@kama.lab)

Practice makes pleasure

Of course, this is only half of the whole process you’ll need to go through in order to squirt; as Kama states, “practice makes pleasure.” From finding your G-pad to perfecting the Kama Push method, Kama’s Squirting 101 workshops will further prepare you for the physical and emotional rollercoaster that the experience of squirting will take you on.

But understand that this experience won’t happen without obstacles getting in the way. Many women report a strong feeling of discomfort sometimes connected to repeated UTIs and yeast infections. Others have shared they felt strong (and surprising) emotions such as shame, anger, and even sadness while and after squirting. These can all be explained by the fact that this area holds tension and memories too, just like the rest of your body does, which is why massaging it for the first few times can be a draining experience for most women.

That’s where Kama comes in to teach you how to turn pain and discomfort into pleasure by reawakening areas of your body that had become numb. Practising squirting becomes all the more important as it helps you release tension and pain in those areas. As your body and mind get used to this specific kind of release, you’ll be able to get to the near-mythical part of squirting: the intense pleasure it will make you feel.

If you do find yourself holding back or holding onto previous misconceptions about squirting, then you probably won’t be relaxed enough to squirt. Sexual pleasure is all about enjoyment, so don’t put too much pressure on yourself. My last piece of advice? Whether you squirt or not, continue to explore your body without any expectations—it can only do you some good, trust me.

Enter our competition HERE to win a FREE ticket to Kama’s Squirting 101 workshops part 1 and part 2! You’re welcome 😉

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