It was forbidden, that street. When I was a girl, I was not allowed to go down that road. My mother had made it clear  that I could only go as far as the end of our street when I went out on my bicycle, never to wander. The forbidden street was at the bottom of the hill, just to the left, at the end. The entrance was shaded with trees, sloping down into the park. At the end, the road turned into hiking trails, eucalyptus trees, mystery.

I wanted him to drive me through the neighborhood where I grew up, where I skinned my knees from bicycle falls, where I played and drew in colored chalk on the sidewalk. We drove around and up and through the hills, my memory as a girl following along the asphalt. “Where can we go?” he asks. I give him a look, wanting. We kiss quickly. He leans close to me as he curves the moving car through the narrow roads, guiding the steering wheel through my childhood memories. I nestle my head into the scoop of his shoulder, planting little kisses lightly along his neck, nuzzling my nose to smell his skin. I trail my fingers along the edge of his ear, the curving shell roundness of it. Just then, at the bottom of the hill, was the forbidden street I wasn’t supposed to go down.

“Let’s go down that street. Turn here.”

The street is quiet. There are houses on one side. The other side is hidden by the densely wooded brush and trees. The tires crackle slowly along the road. We look for a spot to park. I have butterflies in my stomach and a melancholy ache in my bones. He turns the car around at the end, finding a place. We kiss for a moment. It’s dark, headlights off, streetlights buzzing in their orange glow. We can hear someone’s television in the distance. Like teenagers on a date, we cannot wait to kiss. I clasp his face lightly with my hands. The natural scent of him, his warm mouth melting against mine, I’m intoxicated by his kiss. He leans across the center and unbuckles his seatbelt. The click of his seatbelt undone, the sound, opens a place in my body. My blouse, my wide leather belt, my jeans, the seatbelt—confining me. I want to remove everything, remove the things in my life that keep me from him. I want undoing. I unbuckle my heeled sandals. I undo the seatbelt. His hands tuck up underneath my hair. He pulls my face deeper into our kiss.

His mouth and mine, his mouth, mine.

I look out the window into the nigh, and see myself as a girl, running down toward the end where the dirt path begins. I see myself looking back at the older me in the car. She knows— that little girl— where I am going. Whatever she knows, it’s discovered here, this secret place at the end of this street. She sees me, thirty years later, in a minivan full of my children’s things– a baby seat, a baseball bag, the sand toys for the beach all cluttered in the trunk, kissing a man I am having an affair with, a man I am falling in love with, in the dark, stealing a moment away. Secret. It seems that my life has come to this secret and hidden end of a street, to rediscover something forgotten within me.

We climb into the back of the van, my jeans pulled off, removing my belt, my pussy wet, his hard sex in my hand. “You are so hard,” I marvel, as the length and swell of his cock is warm and heavy with thick arousal. I caress his sex with one hand. I cup his balls with the other. He is sitting on the seat, half dressed, still wearing his shirt. I lean up and into him, kissing him deeply. Holding his body to mine, my blouse is sticking from sweat and desire, the fabric coming between the smoothness of our bodies. I want to feel him naked and breathing upon me. I pull the fabric away to feel his belly and chest against mine. He pulls his shirt away, too. We want our skin touching. I want to dissolve into him where the world is golden-yellow and soft like sunlight in summertime memories. I want to melt away into the light as he plunges his body into mine. No barriers, nothing between us, not even the years we lived so close to one another, never knowing that all this time, we were already close in parallel existence. I want his hunger, his sadness, his memories, all of his colors inside of me, blending both of our shadows, touching, like watercolors all bleeding together until the paper is saturated with imperfect beauty.

My lover’s face in the shadows is luminous and delicate. There is something within him that is intangible, revealing itself to me. His face is like moonlight through a raincloud. I put my hand to his cheek, making sure he is there. Here in the dark, the blueness of the evening, illuminated by the amber street lamps lighting the shadows within ourselves, the forgotten places within us can no longer stay hidden. I open my eyes to see him in the dark. He cannot see me entirely. We can only see each other in the half-light. We are shadows of each other. We are radiant with desire, opening and tasting what is true, kissing him, kissing him. By this desire, he is awakening my soul. His fingers and hands light along my body, undoing me, releasing me, bringing me back to life.

I feel released from everything when we kiss. Nothing is binding me to the gravity of my existence. I am a butterfly coming out of a chrysalis. I am returning to myself within his embrace, by his kiss. We move around in the back, trying to find the right position. We kiss, and I laugh like a teenage girl. My legs are up, bare and dangling over his shoulder. He can’t see my face at all now. What he can see he finds with his hands. He discovers me in the slip of my wanting. My skin against his, my pussy is flowering with ripeness, and, as he touches me there, as he slides his fingers inside, he has me, he possesses me— all of me— the girl running down the street and the woman in the back seat of the car.

We kiss. I press my body into his. My hands are slipping all around his shoulders, feeling the fabric of his shirt, flattening my palms, smoothing and stroking his chest, squeezing his arms, and pulling him against me. I want him inside of me. My hands caress up along the back of his neck. My fingernails claw into his black hair. I have this erotic need to kiss him in the back of the car, half naked like this. It brings moments from girlhood into womanhood colliding within me like a surreal dream. I pretend it is him that I first gave myself to in the back of a car. I pretend, all this time, it was he, this man I see in the half-light, the blue shadows curving along his handsome face, his smile, his sighs. I suckle his lower lip, and he says something, pulling away, mystified, searching for my face. He says something beautiful. He is beatific in that moment. I suck his lip in a kiss again, and the same reaction comes. He is searching for my face. The kissing is making us dizzy with the feeling we have. We are in this dream together, looking out the windows at the broken indigo and granite colors, just shapes now, the houses, the street. We are dreaming each other. What we cannot see with our eyes, we can see with our hands, with our kisses. We can see everything about each other and all the years that paralleled themselves, bringing us to this moment, all the secrets once so elusive, now illuminated.

Thirty years before, I ran down that street, not supposed to go there, not allowed. Danger. My mother worried about someone kidnapping me, taking me away. Now, I want to be taken, I want someone to kidnap me. “Take me,” I whisper.

We are in the back of the van. My body is longing for him to be deep inside of me. I am sucking him as he straddles the farthest back seat, slinking into a position so I can take his cock into my mouth. My face nuzzles into his belly, making my way down. I inhale his musky scent, petting the soft nest of hair there with my palm, pressing down upon where his pubic bone meets the base of his sex. Tenderly I open my mouth to take him in, my mouth wet, longing to suck him, licking the head, savoring the length of his erect cock. He is hard. So hard, I have never felt him harder than that. I want him to kidnap me, just take me and take me. I don’t want to go back. I want to run away. I want him so much I can’t imagine how it’s happened. It consumes me, this want, and there’s no stopping it.

Outside the car windows, it’s deep night. We can only hear our breath and our sighing, our desire for one another climbing over the velour car seats, reaching the branches of the trees outside, shaking. I am shaking with orgasms. He gives them to me, over and over until everything blurs together and I don’t know who I am anymore.

The gray concrete of the street softly encompasses us. There is no time, only our breath, our hands, our kisses. My body sinks upon him, I climb upon him, slide him within me. When I am like this, on top of him, I am his. I belong to him, and that is what I need. It doesn’t really matter what we do, or how we do it.

He moves us down onto the carpeted floor of the back of the van. My leg is cramped against the side of the car interior. I cannot see his face now, but he can see mine by the dim light of the window. I feel him watching me as I ride him, moaning a little, feeling the marvelous way his cock slides in and half out of my cunt, my wet and juicy place where he is entering me. He grasps the sides of my hips, holding me upon him. He holds, squeezes me, and shakes my fleshy hips with yearning. I feel like a woman. When he holds my hips like that, I feel him possess me. The softest place of me, not just the inside of my body, but the most secret place, he finds, he uncovers. I am naked inside. I am his. I am myself again.

Orgasms. The magical gift our bodies have to create indescribable pleasure. When we orgasm, our brains are conducting a symphony of pleasure, and the crescendo (or perhaps many crescendos during multiple orgasms) of it all: the orgasm.

Orgasms are very individual in experience, between men and women, and even different again, how each person reaches orgasm. And not one orgasm is exactly the same as another. Orgasms and their varying intensities can also depend on one’s biorhythms during the day, the week, the month. Our bodies respond better when relaxed and feeling secure. If we are feeling relaxed, our pleasure centers are able to bring us to a wider range of orgasmic bliss. Studies and research have all proven that orgasms are good for you. Not only are they good to experience, but orgasms are an integral part of our wellness and vitality.

Here is a link>> to The Kinsey Institute of Sexual Research<<< for information about all kinds of sexual research and data. There is a wealth of information on masturbation, erogenous zones, fantasy, foreplay, oral sex, bisexuality, anal sex, and other sex related topics. Take note: these studies were done between 1948-1953, so that particular data is outdated, but interesting to see how much has changed since. The Kinsey Institute has a Current Research page with plenty of topics to browse. The current research questions are about sexual psychology, neuroscience, biology, gender studies, sociology and other fields that emphasize the complexities of sexual interest, behavior, and sexual health.

Research of human sexual response by the Masters & Johnson research team was initially conducted from 1957 to 1965, which began their series of studies in human sexuality. Their observation of 382 women and 312 men in these initial studies, estimated to be “10,000 complete cycles of sexual response,” made groundbreaking findings and began theories about sex and sexual response that had not been discovered before. (Except for Taoist Sexual Practices, but we will cover that later.)

About Masters & Johnson’s discovery of human sexual response via Wikipedia:

Four stage model of the sexual response

One of the most enduring and important aspects of their work has been the four stage model of sexual response, which they described as the human sexual response cycle. They defined the four stages of this cycle as:

• Excitement phase (initial arousal) 

• Plateau phase (at full arousal, but not yet at orgasm)

• Orgasm

• Resolution phase (after orgasm)

This model shows no difference between Freud‘s purported “vaginal orgasm” and “clitoral orgasm“: the physiologic response was identical, even if the stimulation was in a different place.

(My note: I am in disagreement with Freud’s theories on the female orgasm. This mention is simply due to the quote. Research is also proving Freud’s theories as inaccurate assumptions.)

Masters and Johnson’s findings also revealed that men undergo a refractory period following orgasm during which they are not able to ejaculate again, whereas there is no refractory period in women: this makes women capable of multiple orgasm. They also were the first to describe the phenomenon of the rhythmic contractions of orgasm in both sexes occurring initially in 0.8 second intervals and then gradually slowing in both speed and intensity.

Orgasms can help us let go of stress. They can help us heal. They can prolong our lives. We sleep better and feel better. We want more of them. But, what goes on in our brains when we are enjoying sex? Discovery Health tells us all about it:

Without nerves sending impulses back to the spinal cord and brain, an orgasm wouldn’t be possible. Just like any other area of the body, the genitalia contain different nerves that send information to the brain to tell it about the sensation that’s being experienced. This helps to explain why the sensations are perceived differently depending on where someone is being touched. A clitoral orgasm, for example, differs from a vaginal orgasm because different sets of nerves are involved.

 All of the genitalia contain a huge number of nerve endings (the clitoris alone has more than 8,000 of them), which are, in turn, connected to large nerves that run up through the body to the spinal cord. (The exception is the vagus nerve, which bypasses the spinal cord.) They perform many other functions in the body in addition to providing the nerve supply, and therefore feedback to the brain, during sexual stimulation. Here are the nerves and their corresponding genital areas:

• hypogastric nerve - transmits from the uterus and the cervix in women and from the prostate in men

• pelvic nerve - transmits from the vagina and cervix in women and from the rectum in both sexes

• pudendal nerve - transmits from the clitoris in women and from the scrotum and penis in men

• vagus nerve - transmits from the cervix, uterus and vagina

The role of the vagus nerve in orgasms is a new discovery and there’s still much that’s unknown about it; until recently, researchers didn’t know that it passed through the pelvic region at all.

Since most of those nerves are associated with the spinal cord, it would stand to reason that a person with a severed spinal cord wouldn’t be able to have an orgasm. And for a very long time, that’s what people with these types of injuries were told. However, recent studies show that people with spinal cord injuries — even parapalegics — can reach orgasm. Dr. Barry Komisaruk and Dr. Beverly Whipple of Rutgers University conducted a study on women with severed spinal cords in 2004. They discovered that these women could feel stimulation of their cervixes and even reach orgasm, although there was no way their brain could be receiving information from the hypogastric or pelvic nerves. How was this possible? An MRI scan of the women’s brains showed that the region corresponding to signals from the vagus nerve was active. Because the vagus bypasses the spinal cord, the women were still able to feel cervical stimulation.

So during sexual stimulation and orgasm, different areas of the brain receive all of this information that lets it know exactly what’s happening — and that what’s happening is very enjoyable. But until recently, we had no way of knowing exactly what was happening in the brain at the exact moment of orgasm.

You may have heard that the brain has a pleasure center that lets us know when something is enjoyable and reinforces the desire for us to perform the same pleasurable action again. This is also called the reward circuit, which includes all kinds of pleasure, from sex to laughter to certain types of drug use. Some of the brain areas impacted by pleasure include:

• amygdala - regulates emotions
• nucleus accumbens - controls the release of dopamine
• ventral tegmental area (VTA) - actually releases the dopamine
• cerebellum - controls muscle function
• pituitary gland - releases beta-endorphins, which decrease pain; oxytocin, which increases feelings of trust; and vasopressin, which increases bonding 

So, our brains “light up with pleasure” just as much as our bodies do during an orgasmic release. And it is release. It is all about letting go. This is what Buddhists call “enlightenment”— letting go. It’s not about attaining orgasm but letting go that allows us to be orgasmic.

In our Western society, we say that we are “coming” when we orgasm. But in Japan, they say they are “going.” Literally. “I’m going” is what a Japanese person might say during orgasm, or “iku” the verb which translates as “to go” or “going” and “ikitai?” which means, “do you want to go?” 

Comings and goings alike, we love the orgasmic feeling of complete bliss. We are in the euphoric state of deliciousness. It’s so good! Yes! We can growl like an animal, groan and scream, moan and laugh. Let it all go. It’s so good, in fact, that our bodies respond favorably. With a release of endorphins, an orgasm relieves tension and stress, and we feel high. And we are!

Here’s a little factoid I found:

Dr. Gert Holstege stated that the brain during an orgasm looks much like the brain of a person taking heroin. Holstege said in an interview with the London Times, “Letting go of all fear and anxiety, might be the most important thing, even necessary, to have an orgasm.”

From Wikipedia:

Orgasm, and indeed sex as a whole, are physical activities that can require exertion of many major bodily systems. A 1997 study in the British Medical Journal based upon 918 men age 45–59 found that after a ten year follow-up, men who had fewer orgasms were twice as likely to die of any cause as those having two or more orgasms a week. A follow-up in 2001 which focused more specifically on cardiovascular health found that having sex three or more times a week was associated with a 50% reduction in the risk of heart attack or stroke. (Note that as a rule, correlation does not imply causation).

Did you read that? Men who had fewer orgasms were twice as likely to die of any cause as those having two or more orgasms a week. So get your two or more a week, boys. And reduce your risk of heart attack and stroke by having sex three or more times a week. And, what about women?

For women, frequent and plentiful orgasms are important to maintaining excellent health. There are many reasons for women to have orgasmic pleasure in their daily life. Healths benefits galore! It also makes you happier. Oxytocin levels are increased, and that is linked to our life’s passion, our relationships, and our wellness. Sexual vitality and a happier, healthier woman you will be.

Orgasms are necessary for our well being. Here are some reasons why:

• Orgasms help alleviate tension
• Orgasms helps hormonal balances
• Orgasms help insomnia
• Orgasms improve cardiovascular health
• Orgasms lower your risk of Type-2 diabetes
• Orgasms increase pelvic strength (lessening incontinence)
• Orgasms are anti-aging

There are so many reasons why orgasms are good. We just can’t live without them, can we? When we do, we feel like something is missing. Right?

There are those who have difficulty having an orgasm. Usually the causes are depression, anxiety, medications, psychological traumas, and abuse. To help heal those issues, sexual exploration and tender loving care is necessary.

For relationships that have waned in the sex and intimacy areas, some loving compassion and extra attention should be the focus, and not the issue of sex itself. Sometimes depression, weight gain, hormones, medications, and stress are the sources of why she or he does not want to make love. After childbirth, in particular, a woman feels a natural shift.  A new mother’s love and attention drifts away from her partner, focusing solely on her newborn baby. Months might pass before she feels up to enjoying sex, or even masturbating. Sleep is also a factor. A new parent may just be too sleep deprived to want anything else but a nap.

Shere Hite, an American-born German, sex educator and feminist, did sexological work focused on female sexuality.

About Shere Hite from Wikipedia:

Hite has focused on understanding how individuals regard sexual experience and the meaning it holds for them. Hite has criticised Masters and Johnson’s work for uncritically incorporating cultural attitudes on sexual behaviour into their research. For example, Hite’s work showed that 70% of women do not have orgasms through in-out, thrusting intercourse but are able to achieve orgasm easily by masturbation or other direct clitoral stimulation. Only 30% of the women in her study reported ever experiencing orgasm during thrusting intercourse.

She has criticised Masters and Johnson’s argument that enough clitoral stimulation to achieve orgasm should be provided by thrusting during intercourse, and the inference that the failure of this is a sign of female “sexual dysfunction.” Whilst not denying that both Kinsey and Masters and Johnson have been a crucial step in sex research, she believes that we must understand the cultural and personal construction of sexual experience to make the research relevant to sexual behaviour outside the laboratory. She offered the criticism that limiting test subjects to “normal” women who report orgasming during coitus was basing research on the faulty assumption that having an orgasm during coitus was typical, something that her own research strongly refuted.

The Taoist approach to pleasure and “joining of the essences” has been around for centuries. Their pleasure was purposeful: Wellness and Vitality.

From Wikipedia:

Taoist sexual practices (Simplified Chinese: 房中术, Traditional Chinese: 房中術, pinyin: fángzhōngshù), literally “the bedroom arts”, are the way some Taoists practiced sex. These practices were also known as “Joining Energy” or “The Joining of the Essences.” Practitioners believed that by performing these sexual arts, one could stay in good health, and attain longevity, and eventually, with some other ‘spiritual’ or alchemical practices, attain even immortality.

According to Ge Hong, a 4th century Taoist alchemist, “those seeking ‘immortality’ must perfect the absolute essentials. These consist of treasuring the jing, circulating the qi and consuming the great medicine.” 

The sexual arts concerned the first precept, treasuring the jing. This is partially because treasuring the jing involved sending it up into the brain. In order to send the jing into the brain, the male had to refrain from ejaculation during sex. According to some Taoists, if this was done, the jing would travel up the spine and nourish the brain instead of leaving the body. Ge Hong also states, however, that it is folly to believe that performing the sexual arts only can achieve immortality, and some of the ancient myths on sexual arts had been misinterpreted and exaggerated. Indeed, the sexual arts had to be practiced alongside alchemy to attain longevity. Ge Hong also warned it could be dangerous if practiced incorrectly.

Here are some links to Taoist Sexual Practices:

• Chang, Jolan. The Tao of Love and Sex. Plume, 1977.
• Chang, Stephen T.. The Tao of Sexology: The Book of Infinite Wisdom. Tao Longevity LLC, 1986.
• Chia, Mantak and Maneewan. Cultivating Female Sexual Energy. Healing Tao, 1986.
• Chia, Mantak and Michael Winn. Taoist Secrets of Love. Aurora, 1984.
• Chia, Mantak and Maneewan. The Multi-Orgasmic Couple. HarperOne, 2002.
• Hsi Lai. The Sexual Teachings of the White Tigress: Secrets of the Female Taoist Masters. Destiny Books, 2001.

I have heard about why women did not have sex with their partner as much or, in some cases, anymore. Sometimes months or years have passed without sex or affection. Resentments, anger, and other issues may be blocking the couple from getting close again. For those situations, some help and understanding may be crucial to bring those people together in a loving way.

My own path of self-discovery during my early years of self-pleasure, and partnered pleasure, allowed me to realize my full orgasmic potential. Masturbation is very necessary for understanding our own way of experiencing orgasms. I happen to be in that 5% of women that not only achieve orgasm via simultaneous clitoral stimulation and penetration, but I am also capable of multiple orgasms. I have an orgasm every time I enjoy sex. I may not have multiple orgasms every time, but I am sure to experience at least one or two orgasms within an hour of lovemaking. But, it wasn’t always that way for me. Over time, I had learned what I liked and what made me respond. How I enjoy my clitoris touched, what excites me, and even new discoveries occur after years of enjoyment and orgasmic pleasure like spontaneous orgasms (it’s happened a few times) from barely a touch of someone’s hand or a ride on my bicycle seat. Working out my triceps in the gym by pulling down on a cable gives me a little tingle down there.

Once, receiving a Thai massage gave me a spontaneous orgasm.

The therapist was massaging into my glutes, pressing his knees into my butt and hips. It was sudden and unexpected, how my body responded. I silently gasped and felt surprised that I had a sudden orgasm. No complaints about it, but I certainly wasn’t expecting an orgasm!

It took years of teenage exploration until I figured out how to touch my clitoris in a quick circle while my boyfriend was thrusting inside of me. That was when I discovered how to orgasm with my partner. I was 19 years old when I first had this a-ha moment. Eventually I learned how to orgasm without touching myself during sex. Then it was a question of what position was best.

Everyone is different. What works for me may not work for another. Even if its similar, there is no exact formula. What works for one woman may not work for another in the exact way. This is what puzzles most men. They think it is formulaic in approach, a woman’s orgasm. There are so many different variables involved. I think I have discovered a commonality among men who know how to touch a woman (okay, some women know how to touch a woman, too, but I’m talking male to female here): sensitivity and listening. There are men that by listening to a woman’s body (and not with their ears but that helps) can read their sexual response. It’s an art, a sensitivity to her own individual wiring. They are patient and very interested in her pleasure alone. They get satisfaction from pleasing her and making her feel good. They aren’t in it to get off. These patient and sensitive men tune themselves in to every breathing pattern, every motion, sound, and swell of the woman’s response. They just get it.

There are many women that do fake orgasms. My guess would be that they don’t want their partners to feel inadequate. Perhaps they are afraid to communicate to their partner. But, sometime soon, if they want to experience pleasure and to enjoy satisfying orgasms with their partner, they need to address it. It’s complex for some women to discover their orgasmic bliss.

I had one friend admit to me that she had never masturbated. We were 21 years old at the time, and I was shocked when she told me. Never? She had never masturbated. Her bedroom at home was the main walkway for the family’s bathroom. She lacked privacy. She also found it difficult to reach orgasm with her partner. Well, of course. She had never self-pleasured herself. How could she know what she liked? I was concerned for her happiness, until I noticed her Hitachi Magic Wand vibrator plugged in next to her bed in her first apartment. I smiled knowingly when I saw the vibrator, because I knew she was catching up on lost time, and er, um… orgasms.

I find that my own orgasmic patterns have deepened and become more intense as I have entered my 40s, in fact, my capacity for sexual pleasure has increased over time. I believe it has to do with self knowledge and perhaps that thing called ‘a woman’s prime.’ My erogenous zones are everywhere, and the biggest one, my brain, is very active. I have been going through perimenopause, and taking Chinese herbs from my acupuncturist to balance my hormones and rejuvenate my sexual vitality. I suspect that it was the herbs for rejuvenation of my yin essence that caused me to feel an intense desire the other night. It seemingly came out of the blue. Aphrodisiacs? What is in that tea?

I was having dinner at our favorite Japanese restaurant, when I found myself lusting over the waiter. My children were clamoring around me and my husband at our dining table, but all I could think of was the waiter, standing before me, half naked, a big hard-on pressing through his pants, his shirt unbuttoned. In my fantasy, he was taking me on the sushi counter, while the chef began to join in. (In this moment of fantasy, everyone in the restaurant disappears.) There I am, staring at the waiter, having this fantasy, when I realize that he is staring back at me in disbelief. You see, this waiter has been lusting over me quite obviously for nearly five years, and this is maybe the first time I have met his gaze in equal amounts of desire. My husband, good natured man that he is, thought it was amusing.

He reaped the benefits later that night, when I looked at him solidly and said: “I absolutely must have an orgasm right now.”

He laughed, “That’s quite a lot of pressure.”

Me: “Yes, but I know you are capable of it. No question.”

Towels placed on the bed (I finally had my period thanks to good acupuncture treatments) we made love like we did when we first met. I was really into it. My body was asking for an intensity that isn’t my usual “go slow… slower…slower” approach. No, I wanted it hard, rough, animalistic. I wanted him to pound me harder and to pull my hair, so he did with a sly smile, clutching my long hair in his hand. I squeezed my breasts and felt them bounce while he plunged deeper… pressure against my clitoris in a circle, because ah, yes… that was what I needed. I came and came in waves of orgasmic pleasure until we were both in a sweaty tangle of sighs and moans. I talked naughtily and told him sexy things I wanted to do: I wanted to watch him with another woman, and make her come like he makes me come. I wanted the waiter in my mouth while he gives me exquisite orgasms. I wanted to taste the waiter’s come, feel it all over my body; hot, delicious, sweet, salty. I was in the heat of desire and the euphoric state of orgasm. Chinese herbs, perhaps?

I said so many things that I usually keep within my mind, but I didn’t say aloud that I wanted my acupuncturist, that I wanted four men, five men, a few women, an orgy. I wanted oysters and champagne and lots of sex. I wanted to give orgasms and to have orgasms again and again. I was in a flurry of erotic fantasy, which helped me reach that magical rippling sensation within my body, something marvelous and ecstatic. I felt myself completely relaxed, letting go, allowing the wisdom of my body to do what it enjoys, and to allow my mind to roam freely through fantasies.

Multiple Orgasms are blissful experiences. I remember when I first began having them. It takes awhile during lovemaking to build up to, but eventually, reaching a heightened state of pleasure, I can experience one orgasm into another, just like waves coming to shore. A little one, another, then a big one… drifting into a little one… and men can have them too! Men are capable of orgasms without ejaculation, as well as multiple orgasms. Try reading The Multi-Orgasmic Man and also The Multi-Orgasmic Woman. Also, The Multi-Orgasmic Couple!

Orgasms. They do a body good! So go have one. Or two. Or more!

For the past nine years, I have been acutely aware of what arouses my desire: a passion, a yen for the Asian male. I say that playfully, yen, but it’s a serious matter. I cannot fully explain it. I write this to better understand my erotic fascination. Asian men are, for me, an enigma, the Eros of my own Psyche, the dream of my sensual desires. My attraction to the Asian male goes beyond the surface, deeper into my soul’s mysterious yearning.

My fantasy of the Asian man. He is sincere, tender, kind. A man who considers, rather than assumes. He is gentle yet masculine, soulful and strong. He is connected to his inner femininity, which emphasizes his own masculinity. He doesn’t try to exhibit machismo; he is supple of heart and mind. He is romantic but not effusive, gentlemanly but not contrived.

In my experience, other men I have dated, slept with, been with, engaged and married to, were not quite right for me. After a certain point, I lost interest. Somehow, the magic was not there, and the thrill was gone. What was left after the initial spark? I didn’t know myself well enough. I needed more time to explore the very depths of my being in order to know what I like and to know my soul’s desire. Previous to my acknowledgement of what sort of man attracts me like no other, I tried a rainbow of men. A few Latino lovers of Mexican and Spanish heritage. I was engaged to a red-headed, freckly, Irish-Belgian man covered in tattoos and piercings. I dated a few Scottish laddies, one Norwegian type, and a Hungarian from Montreal. A fling with a cerebral Bostonian songwriter. I had several boyfriends that were ‘grunge’ musicians of various mixed nationalities, simply Americans. I was pursued by many salivating Italian raconteurs and one Persian Casanova. I had a Persian-Polish-French (ex)husband. There was that African-American guy I dated and an Aussie or two. I had a whirlwind affair with an Irish poet from Wicklow.

Along the way, I discovered, my archetypal ideal man is Asian.

It started in fifth grade. I was a shy girl; tall, awkward, wearing tortoise shell-framed glasses. My lanky body and large hands made me feel like a monster next to the petite and giggly Japanese girls in my class.

I lived in historic Los Feliz, the hilly old Hollywood neighborhood of Griffith Park. My elementary school was a melting pot of many cultures. I felt comfortable, at home, around the colorful mixture of ethnicities.  I was intrigued by a Filipino boy that wore glasses like me. He was also shy and tall. And completely adorable. My first real crush.

When this Filipino boy was near, my blood pulsed through my veins, my mouth felt sticky and dry. I could not look at him. He also looked away. Then one day, he decided to look at me in class. He gave me a long, sideways glance. He pushed his glasses down his nose and gave a sly smile. Everyone in class knew he had a crush on me. My stomach gurgled with nervousness. I wanted to get as far away from him as possible. My vacillation between wanting him to talk to me and wanting to hide filled me with dread. What would I do, I thought, if he kissed me? I shoved the thought far back into my mind, never asking that of myself again. Until I read the (forbidden) novel I found on my grandparents’ bookshelf, Lady Chatterley’s Lover. 

When I found the book on the shelf, I instinctively knew it was sensual. The sound of the book, the sweeping title name Lady Chatterley followed by Lover spelled out suggestions of longing and kisses. But the other thing was, as I read this novel, she was a Lady that was also compelled and confused by the climate of her desire.

As young as I was, I was aware that there was something interesting about the boy I had a crush on. If we had the opportunity to talk to one another, I am sure a puppy love affair would have developed. But with both of us being very shy, it never happened.

Many years later, I am in the movie theater. I am pregnant with my second child. My then-husband, the Persian-Polish-French man, loud-voiced, blue-eyed, blond-haired, was suddenly of no interest to me. In fact, he repelled me. I am in the movie theater with my French Maman-in-law, watching House of Flying Daggers. It’s November. I’m eight months pregnant, transfixed by Takeshi Kaneshiro on the screen. Suddenly, I’m boiling hot. I feel stifled. My clothes are uncomfortable. I’m wiggling and soon desperate to remove every article of clothing possible while in a public theater. My fluffy pink pashmina was itchy. My eyes grazed the handsome glowing face of Jin (Takeshi Kaneshiro). Breathtaking, strong, determined. His love scene in the fields with the dangerous beauty, Mei, naked. Observing his pale skin, his long, black hair, it created a chain reaction of chemicals brewing in my body like a love potion. My mouth tasted of metal, swallowing, shaking. My body shifted from cold to hot. My sex pulsing. My belly full of baby, rolling around. I gripped the theater seat. My hands- sweaty. Jin has fallen in love with Mei, the main love interest. The duel in the snow, the last scene, profoundly aroused me until I was left flushed and confused by it all. The clash of swords caused my body to respond. I am surprised that I am turned on by violence. But the look of intense and furious concentration on his face reminded me of sex.

My brain pieced it all together; his face, his body, the love scene, the duel in the snow. All of it was powerfully erotic. My maman-in-law in the seat next to mine, Parisian and aware of l’amour, sniggered to herself as I removed my pashmina and socks. Barely reaching my shoes, I fumbled in the dark theater. I could not stop the chain reaction of the sword metal clanging in my head, reverberating through my bones, sending off little fires like daggers into my blood. Takeshi Kaneshiro’s naked skin flashed again and again in my mind’s eye. During the fight scene, his battle cries were sexual, his voice guttural and animal. I could not stand it, the reaction my body. In that moment, I imagined him coming inside of me, wanting it wildly. I wanted to be naked underneath him, his body pressed upon me, feeling the weight of him, the smoothness of his skin, the scent of his body. I imagine the taste of his lips. Then, in the film, he strikes forward toward his opponent, thrusting his sword in rage during the duel, and I swoon like a lady of the Renaissance, completely undone by the primal response.

As Jin thrusts his sword, I think of him naked and sweaty, dripping his perspiration all over my body as he groans and plunges inside of me. His hair is damp with sweat from our lovemaking, and he is determined to make me orgasm over and over again. He won’t stop, he keeps thrusting, deeper, harder, with ferocity and sexual hunger. The theater seat felt hard and confining. My swelling pregnant body overwhelmed by sudden, unexplainable lust.

The sword fight in the snow shook up my belief that I only responded to non-violent, loving, and gentle behaviors— it was puzzling that I physically reacted with such an intense sexual response. Gentleness and sweetness are two qualities that I require in a partner. The Sakyong, Jamgön Mipham Rinpoche, a Tibetan lama, has the same effect upon me due to his beautiful calm and handsome face. For quite some time I absorbed everything the Sakyong wrote, keeping his books by my bedside. And why is this little “falling in love” so troublesome? When having a “crush” on a Tibetan lama provided so much necessary inner growth and peace? But for the earthly desires I felt, falling for Sakyong Mipham was a positive thing. His poetry, painting, and calligraphy inspired me, because it illumined his passion. The sexual desires were natural as well. And quite probable, the possibility. Tibetan Buddhist lamas are not celibate at all. In fact, his father, Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, was a lover of many women.

My sexual fantasies were more complex than I realized, and my primal instinct was to want the rough, savage male fighting viciously with his sword. My neural pathways were creating infinite loops and knots in some ancient pattern. The sword, his face, masculine, animal, my breath, my heartbeat, blood. Again and again, my female response to this scene, a sword fight, calls question to my own self-knowledge.

Understanding my sexual response and inclination to prefer the Asian man is a long path that trails through my genetic wiring. Scientists are now finding through research that women’s sexual orientations have something they call fluidity. 

Fluidity is something that occurs when I am entranced by a handsome Asian man, and, yes, it is no surprise that it triggers the physical fluidity as well (like damp panties). But fluidity in this terminology is “situation-dependent flexibility in women’s sexual responsiveness.” The original concept of “fluidity” has to do with women (like me, again) that are “bi-sexual” as their sexuality shifts (like water or fluid) according to the social influence and stages of their life. So I suppose it sort-of fits this situation, but not really. What I am finding is, as I entered my last marriage (to a non-Asian and very Caucasian male), I completely lost interest in him and his kind and only wanted Asian men. Period.

Still, after so many years, the final sword fight scene in House of Flying Daggers affects me like hardcore pornography. Intense, passionate, and bloody, Takeshi Kaneshiro moves my soul into a realm I cannot explain.

As the years went by, my desire for the Asian man reached epic proportions. Obsessive desire, longing, and wandering Asian markets, shopping centers, and neighborhoods, wearing nothing underneath my flouncy skirt. I wanted to be ravished, devoured, desired by them. I wanted many Asian lovers, all of them hopelessly in love with me. Takeshi Kaneshiro would not be immune. In my fantasy, he stalks me, calling me at all hours, asking if I like pineapple. He runs deliriously through the rain, longing for my touch again. Okay, I am making that up and referring to the film Chungking Express where he does just that. And eats many cans of pineapple.

I am with a Japanese man. I have become so accustomed to him, I forget that he is Japanese. It is because I love him as the person that I connect with. It has become more than the idealized sexual fantasy. Attraction has its magic, but sexual preference is still the glue that binds. It has been more than five years with him, and sex is better than ever. Quirky I guess, but when he talks softly in my ear in Japanese when we make love, I get shivers all over. My sexual response speeds up remarkably, until I am highly aroused and have multiple orgasms. Some things are better off as mysterious. It’s the wonders of life that we cannot know.

There are other celebrity Asian men I find wildly good looking or exceptionally sexy. Chef Ming Tsai, for instance. I have recently admitted to masturbating while looking at the cover of his latest cookbook: Simply Ming: One-Pot Meals. He turns me on by just looking at him. And, he cooks. He loves wine, and he does yoga. He believes in balance and harmony, and combines it all in one pot. Yes, he was raised in Dayton, Ohio. But still, he was raised in the kitchen and learned the art of cooking from his parents before studying at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris. I melt like butter in a hot pan when I see his handsome face. Watching clips of Ming in the kitchen is veritable foodie porn.

 Ah, Ming. A dream man I desire. Whatever my mind does, and however it does it, I forget science and gaze upon his picture, longing to be by his side, at a wine tasting somewhere verdant and pastoral. The fantasy rolls through some idyll countryside of France, where we are giddy with wine and love. I imagine sex with him would be gourmet. His hands fragrant with spices and herbs. His kisses, sensual and epicurean. I suppose there is a common thread: wielding a sword or a chef’s knife, the Asian man of my dreams is multi-faceted, passionate, the existential hero of my animus within.

I am lost in the mystery of my desire, in favor of the Asian man.

After so many years since this film was created by director/writer Jean-Jacques Annaud, The Lover (1992), it still resonates with a concentrated amount of beautiful desire. The Lover was based on the true story of French writer Marguerite Duras’ life experience. She had written about her first lover, which was later translated into this film from her book.

Marguerite Duras, the author of many novels, plays, films, interviews, essays and short fiction, including her best-selling, autobiographical work L’Amant (1984), translated into English as The Lover, describes her affair with a Chinese man when she was a teenage girl. This book won the Goncourt prize in 1984. The story of her adolescent blossoming into womanhood was written by Duras in The North China Lover. The film version of The Lover, produced by Claude Berri, was released to great success in 1992.

I first saw this film in 1992 when it was released, and was transfixed by the poetic way the writings had been translated into film. The memoir in book form was tragic and melancholy, and not nearly as sexy as the film. The story itself was fleshed out (no pun intended) into a sensual, erotic, and explicit visual.

As I have had a long-time crush on Tony Leung Ka Fai (there are two Tony Leungs in the acting world, both exquisitely sensual and hot), this film is my most favorite of his acting, um, skills. Now, the opening scene of Tony as the wealthy Chinese man (known in the film as “The Chinaman”) dressed in an elegant white suit, simply takes my breath away every time. Jane March is delicate, lovely, and the embodiment of a girl becoming a woman. She oozes sex combined with feminine girlishness, and her portrayal of the young Marguerite Duras is remarkable.

Aside from the intensely passionate sex scenes, which cannot be anything but real, the film tells a universal story of erotic love.