Sexual climax is, as the term suggests, the peak or high point of sexual intercourse and marital intimacy. It is – or at least can be, and usually is – an extremely powerful experience. But it is also a fact of life that there is a lot of variability in the experience of orgasm, both in men and women. Sometimes orgasms can be just absolutely overpowering; at other times, they can be “just” strong and satisfying, and sometimes they can be weak and pass very quickly. This is just an aspect of the ups and downs of ordinary human life. But, in truth, the fact is that most of the time, orgasm is experienced as an extraordinary delight, which is why we love to achieve it!
Some articles that survey a wide range of the scientific study of orgasm can be found here.
Describing Climax or Orgasm
One interesting fact about climax is the incredible variety of the ways people describe it. Apparently, it is so distinctive that comparisons fail. Some people say it is like a sneeze – which I find completely puzzling. Another person said it was like being hit in your funny bone — only really enjoyable. My stab would be that it is like a suffusion of the body with intense pleasure (for some reason, it begins in my legs and moves up, though I haven’t heard other men say that), culminating in an explosion of pleasure in the mind and throughout the whole body that lasts for about 5-10 seconds, give or take, then tailing off.
One small observation I will make deals with the question whether the physical feeling of climax or orgasm is continuous or comes in “waves.” I make this observation, because for many years I would have said that the pleasure comes in waves, but I eventually changed my opinion. I think the original opinion was based on a confusion between the genuine feeling of waves – which come from the rhythmic contractions that both men and women experience, associated both with the urge to thrust and (in men) with the emission of semen in spurts – and the actual feeling of orgasm itself. But the feeling of waves is, I think, distinct from the feeling of orgasm, which is a feeling of continuous intense pleasure accompanying, but not the same as, the rhythmic contractions and thrusting.
It is sometimes said that men and women describe climax or orgasm in the same way, that it is fundamentally the same experience. Without denying that there may be considerable similarities, I find this really implausible. The most obvious reason to doubt it is that there is at least one very fundamental difference: when men orgasm, they usually enter the resolution (post-orgasmic) state immediately, while women may plateau, and go on to another orgasm. [I put the “multi-orgasmic male” phenomenon to the side, because it seems to be a relatively uncommon occurrence, and I have no direct knowledge of it.] Given the magnitude of that difference, it seems likely to me that there are also some differences in the actual experience of climax itself. But I also doubt whether this is a question that can ever be resolved, other than saying that the experience is at least similar. Feelings are, after all, intensely personal. I may know how it feels for me to eat a piece of great cake, but I am not at all sure I could describe it well to someone else.
Men, Women, and Male Envy
If orgasm is extraordinarily intensely pleasurable (and it usually is), for men the intensity of the moment brings the paradox that it is almost always a complex mixture of pleasure and disappointment, because its short duration (of 3, 5, 8 seconds) is a disappointment – because you want it to go on and on and on . . . and it doesn’t.
This means that husbands unavoidably have moments when they really envy their wives, especially because of their capacity for multiple and serial orgasms. (“Multiple orgasms” involve a return to a plateau for a few minutes and then coming to climax again; “serial orgasms” are almost continuous, with little time in between them.) In addition, the moments before her orgasm seem to have a pre-orgasmic intensity that a male’s pre-orgasmic moments don’t match – perhaps because he is in those moments the relatively “active” principle (active, because he is guiding the action, performing the actions that bring her to climax – though also receptive because he is driven by the external stimulus of her desirability, responding to the demand he experiences of wanting to intensify her pleasure more and more and more).
This envy is understandable, because (as I have pointed out elsewhere on this website) Teresias (of Greek myth – a man who became a woman for a time) was right – women do have greater physical pleasure in sex. But it is also wrong in important ways.
It’s wrong, first, because wives, as much as they love the pleasure – even a very “ladylike” woman can say that at that moment she would do ANYTHING for it (sell out her country, kill anyone who got in the way – which, of course is not true, since she would respond to her needy child instantly, if necessary) – don’t (psychologically) put as high a value on the physical pleasure itself as men do. The value of, the focus on, the personal union of husband and wife in the marital act provides a context for the pleasure (this isn’t a “competing” value — it’s an “integral” one, all wrapped up in the same act). Women (especially married women) don’t usually focus simply on physical pleasure in the act (as a man can do more easily). So, if men were women, they might not be experiencing the pleasure in the same way they do as men. (And, please, be careful not to misunderstand this argument – it’s nowhere near saying that women don’t experience physical pleasure intensely – especially as my next point suggests.)
Second, a wife can experience a point during orgasm at which the pleasure becomes sooooo intense that it can’t be continued (if it did, it would be painful) – so that she may push her husband away and say “no more!” This is a profoundly puzzling moment for her husband, who has no idea what that can possibly mean. What is “too much sexual pleasure”?! Bring it on! He is always dying for more. If anything, he is always a little bit disappointed that the “more” (a continuation of his pleasure) is perpetually out of his grasp – it always ends before he has had “enough.”
And yet that moment when his wife says “no more” is, paradoxically, also an extraordinary high for the husband, because it immensely intensifies his sexual satisfaction (which is something broader than “sexual pleasure”).
Simultaneous Climax
There seems to be a natural desire for husband and wife to climax together. That has led to extensive discussions on the internet about whether or how much it matters. Many people downplay the idea of simultaneous climax.
I think it’s healthy not to attach excessive importance to simultaneous orgasm. The simple fact of climaxing together or successively shouldn’t have a great impact on the overall act of marital love, since it is, after all, the expression of love that counts. And non-simultaneous climaxes do have their advantages: for example, when a husband is not overpowered by his own intense orgasmic feelings at the moment of his wife’s orgasm, he can “focus on” his wife’s climax in a way that is deeply psychologically satisfying to him and he can consciously appreciate having this God-given power.
At the same time, there is a fundamental “appropriateness” to simultaneous climax in an act of sexual “union” — because climaxing at the same time signifies or enhances the sense of that union. Rising to those heights in the same moment, as the culmination of an act in which husband and wife have lovingly exchanged the kisses and the touches that bring them up to, into, and over, the point of sexual ecstasy, deepens the sense of their sexual union. And so I think it is something that, in a general sort of way, should be aimed at — but, of course, without making a big deal of it.
Do We Climax Together or Alone?
The moment of climax is paradoxical in some ways. Think of the physiology of it. A husband typically arches his back, pulling him AWAY from his wife at this moment of greatest union – though, at the same time, with his thrusts he is reaching as deeply into her with his penis as he can (without hurting her), seeking her greatest depths. (Wanting to reach deep into her is one reason he’s arching his back.)
And I think it is common for a husband (like his wife, as well) to close his eyes as he climaxes, because the intensity of the moment may be diminished if he keeps them open, because seeing something, anything, detracts from the total focus on, total absorption in, the overpowering, intense pleasure of that moment – though, in the moments just before orgasm, the sight of his wife overcome, entirely caught up in, absorbed in, transfixed by the pleasure he is bestowing on her is often a key element of the culminating stimulus to his own climax, pushing him over the edge into orgasm.
This closing of the eyes (to keep out distractions?) raises an interesting question: is the experience of sexual climax an experience in which a person is “alone”? For the moment, I am not discussing the question of simultaneous climaxing of husband and wife (see above) — I am focusing now on the psychological experience of orgasm.
Of course, a husband is not literally alone, as he climaxes in his wife. But is he, in a sense, psychologically alone in that moment of intense pleasure – completely absorbed in his own self, his own feelings? And does this in some way undermine the unity of the couple at this moment? Is it a moment that is unavoidably selfish? Is there a paradox that in this physical unity the moment of climax is itself an experience of aloneness or isolation as one is caught up completely in one’s own pleasure? I think that it can be that way, very easily. In the actual moment of climax, one way to experience sexual climax is total absorption in one’s own pleasure: one reacts to the experience with “I . . . feeeeeeel . . . soooooooooooooooo . . . gooooooood!”
One “sexpert” says this: “Having an orgasm is a selfish experience: you’re totally and utterly fixated on your own pleasure. Having to pay attention to your partner’s bits to guarantee they’re enjoying themselves at exactly the same moment doesn’t enhance the experience, it interferes with it.”
But I don’t think it has to be that way.
The last moments before climax can also be a moment in which a husband can unite with his wife in more than a physical way. He can tell his wife, urgently, as he reaches the point of no return, “I’mmm commmming, my love” — letting her know that he is entering the indescribable moment, one that she has been, is, or will likely be experiencing too, and in this way recognizing his debt to her for having brought him to this moment. In one sense, at least, it can be equivalent to: “I am coming . . . to YOU, and I want you to know the delight you have been the cause of.” The words spoken just before orgasm can be a conscious stimulus to both self and spouse to enter into the transcendence of the approaching moment.
So the moment of climax, in which it seems that he is totally absorbed in his own intense and overpowering pleasure, doesn’t have to be a moment of total absorption in himself. Whether it is depends on his whole stance on, his attitude toward, life — his understanding of reality – his “default” horizon or world.
Moreover, there is another way to get out of oneself even at this moment of powerful pleasure — finding God in the Marital Climax.