There’s something about watching a woman touch herself outside the context of porn that’s so… well, frankly kind of strange.
I really hate to admit this. My reaction makes zero sense to me. I’m hugely sex- and masturbation-positive. I write about sex (and other things) for a living. But the whole thing is still so very, complicatedly, uncomfortable.
OMGYES is a website created by researchers who are studying tens of thousands of women to find out what women enjoy in the bedroom. Top researchers at respected institutions are discovering new things about pleasure from videos of women demonstrating on themselves, for science.
Yes, going through OMGYES has helped me tremendously. It’s helped me understand that what I like best not only isn’t that weird, but actually has a name. Researchers even know what percentage of women also like it.
I also learned that some things take time to feel good. For example, 45% of women found it unpleasant to have their g-spot stimulated at first, but then discovered ways to make it feel good.
I learned that I’m definitely not alone when it comes to needing a consistent motion to have an orgasm sometimes.
And, there are at least seven techniques for helping make this happen:
The instructional videos, guides, and animations introduced techniques I’d never even thought of. And, again, I watch a lot of porn and read a lot about sex. So that’s an accomplishment.
Plus, it gave me ideas for expanding on what I already knew I liked.
Perhaps most importantly, the site gave me the confidence and language I needed to talk to my partners about how to give me more pleasure when we’re together.
But, actually, now that I think about it, that’s not the most important thing OMGYES is doing for me.
More pleasure in the bedroom is great, of course. I wouldn’t turn it down.
But what’s vastly more important to me is what OMGYES is doing to normalize studying, talking about, thinking about, reading about, and, yes, watching women’s sexual pleasure.
They even create helpful diagrams to help illustrate the concepts.
Women’s pleasure, in the rare case it’s actually depicted in mainstream movies and television, is usually shown as happening mostly organically, with zero conversation or effort. Otherwise, it’s shunted off to too brightly lit pornographic films meant to cater to the male gaze. No conversation, no negotiation, no instruction. When it happens, it’s just a lot of fast, rough fingering and licking with a bit of spit as lubrication. Yuck.
And maybe that’s part of what made me pause before hitting play. I expected, if unconsciously, more of the same. I probably expected a depiction of female “pleasure” that I not only couldn’t relate to at all, but was actually painful to watch because I know how unpleasant that feels in real life.
Besides that, it’s no wonder I felt uncomfortable watching women give themselves actual pleasure while explaining what they were doing. It’s totally contrary to everything I’ve ever witnessed.
OMGYES shows that, as it turns out, most men can’t read women’s minds.
As it turns out, most women don’t like two rough, dry fingers thrusting in and out of them at top speed. As it turns out, what women like varies, by the woman and by the day. Yes, there are themes. Which is what OMGYES is excellent at identifying, explaining, and demonstrating. But ultimately, there’s no one-size-fits-all for female sexual pleasure. Which is why conversation, negotiation, and instruction are so vital for a mutually fulfilling, pleasurable sex life.
So it’s not the techniques were insanely new to me. Though they’re great, don’t get me wrong. But in my opinion, it’s the conversation, the normalization, the mainstreaming of female sexual pleasure in all its variation and nuance that makes OMGYES life-changing.
Just now I watched a woman put two fingers inside herself and twist them around while explaining what she’s doing and how it feels. That particular technique is not for me, as far as I know. But watching her own her pleasure and demonstrate it without shame or fear – that right there, that’s for me.
I recommend you all check out OMGYES, watch the samples and see if you feel the same as I do.