Slow Sex Part 2: Meditation with a Side of “O.”

Read time: 12 - 15 minutes

This edition contains images to demonstrate concepts. These images are NOT appropriate for all audiences, so please be mindful as you read - in terms of where you are and who is around you.

This week, we continue our series on Slow Sex, based on the work of Nicole Daedone, author of Slow Sex: The Art and Craft of the Female Orgasm.

You will learn how to engage in Orgasmic Meditation. This is a prescriptive and detailed guide that gives you exactly what you and your partner need for this practice. The images and concepts outlined here are based on the stroking of female genitals (to be explained).

Next week, when we wrap up our Slow Sex series, we will provide comparable guidance for male genitals.

To not be repetitive for last week’s readers, we’re only providing a quick recap. If you did not read last week’s edition, you can access it HERE.

A Very Quick Recap

Slow Sex: “Slow Sex is a way to approach sex that emphasizes sustainability, connection, and nourishment. It deepens your relationship to your partner and your own body, so you can experience orgasm from the inside out.”

Orgasmic Meditation: Orgasmic Meditation, or OM-ing, is a meditation-based practice where the male partner strokes his female partner’s genitals with one finger of one hand for 15 minutes. 

In an OM practice, we begin to look at orgasm not as the “main event,” but a collection of all pleasure events within our intimacy.

Preparing the Mind to OM

Stripping Down (Mentally):

As you may recall from last week, we shared how expectations can interrupt our ability to experience deep pleasure. Expectations regarding our bodies, our performance, our partners’ bodies, our partners’ performance, etc. These expectations cloud our ability to fully engage in our sexual experiences because they are our baggage – weighing us down physically, mentally and spiritually.

To OM, we must set aside expectations and allow the experience to stand independently and free from judgment.

Paying Attention:

According to Daedone, “Paying attention is essential to great art, great lovemaking, and great OM.” Attention affords us the exploration of subtle events and sensations, but attention is hard. Our society makes it astoundingly difficult to pay attention – to the extent that medical researchers have identified ways in which the brain has changed physiologically due to the onslaught of distractions we face daily.

In addition to quieting the mind, we must also quiet the mouth during OM. We may be tempted to “talk dirty” during sexual encounters, but how can we listen to our sex and pay attention to sensation when we're talking or listening to our partner? During OM, we stop the chatter and give ourselves space to focus on what we are feeling – the sensations.

Experiencing Sensation:

Sensation is the experience of our five senses. It should not be confused with our emotions. If I poured melted dark chocolate over your lips and tongue, the sensation would not be, “I like the way this tastes.” Those are your emotions about the experience. Instead, the sensation would be, “Warm, sweet, tingling, etc.”

If distinguishing these – sensation and emotion – is challenging, that’s ok. Daedone says our sensory systems are often "underused, neglected and even repressed.” When we don’t fully acknowledge the sensations we experience, in sex and in life, we may find ourselves on an ever-escalating path in pursuit of greater sensation – the very thing we have presently but are not acknowledging.

Daedone says the following about the pursuit of sensation:

“What we want in life is more and more sensation, right? But since so few of us have working sensation detection systems, the natural tendency is to want to add more and more until we can feel something… We’ve grown used to our partner so we add new sex positions and eye-gazing practices and toys and porn to help get ourselves in the mood again. The problem is that this strategy never works. No matter how outlandish our sex becomes, without cultivating our attention and our ability to feel sensation, we’ll eventually be numb to even the most radical sex practices.”

Asking for What You Want:

While the previous requisites apply to women and men, asking for what you want is something with which women tend to struggle. Patriarchy, respectability, roles, societal and familial expectations, shame, degradation, personal safety and any number of other factors have had a direct and detrimental impact on women’s ability to articulate their desires. And while there are plenty of women who have found their voice and a growing number who continue to find theirs, many have not.

The strategy to address this is rather simple – to get accustomed to asking, you simply must ask. That’s it. Deal with the early discomfort of asking and ask. And ask again. And again.

Now, it’s time to OM...

How to OM

1 - Make the Request

One partner must ask the other to OM. If your partner is unfamiliar with OM, explain it and why you’d like to try it. While you likely know how best to communicate with your partner, share OM-ing not as a remedy to a problem (e.g. “Our sex is boring and I’m about to leave you.”), but as an opportunity to explore something new (e.g. “I recently learned about OM-ing and I think it could be fun/good/healthy for both of us.”).

2 - Set the Scene

a) Space: Choose a comfortable area in your home (or a safe space wherever you are located). The bed is fine, but depending upon your comfort level, you may want a harder surface like the floor. 

b) Items: Mat or blanket (where stroked partner will lay); Seat cushion (where the stroker will sit), support pillows (where the stroked partner will place head and legs), lubricant and timer.

c) Lighting: Lights should remain on as the stroker must see, but avoid strong or distracting lighting.

d) Technology: Turn everything off. If you’re using your phone as a timer, set the phone to silent.

About the Timer: OM-ing is a 15-minute experience. You can certainly OM for longer, but Daedone recommends partners OM for 15 minutes per session and if they’re enjoying it, to have more sessions at separate times.

3 - Get Undressed

The stroked partner removes their clothing from the waist down. All other clothing must remain on. The stroking partner remains fully dressed. The idea is to distinguish OM from regular sex and keep both partners focused on the sensations they’re experiencing through OM itself. Although clothing remains on, both partners should be dressed comfortably.

This diagram best demonstrates how both partners should be positioned. While you can enhance your space with more support to get comfortable, the position as demonstrated is important to OM – specifically that the stroker sits up and has a complete, unobstructed view of the stroked partner’s genitals.

4 - Notice

Noticing is when the stroker takes time to gaze at the stroked partner’s genitals and describe what they see. The premise of this exercise is that we, especially women, often carry shame about the appearance of our genitals and through this strictly observational exercise, both partners can create a level of familiarity, comfort and intimacy with the body itself. When articulating what they see, the stroker focuses on observations of what they see, not their judgments of what they see. 

An Observation: “Your pussy is coral pink in the center with a darker pink color appearing in the outer labia.”

A Judgment: “Your pussy is sexy.”

5 - Stroke

These diagrams are designed to aid the stroker in following the instructions below.

Instructions to Stroke (as quoted directly from the text):

1 - Place lube on your left pointer finger and let your partner know you’re about to make contact.

2 - Using the same finger, stroke once upward from her vaginal opening or introitus, ending at the upper left of her clit, spreading the lube over her clit as you go.

3 - Using your thumb and middle finger, pull back her hood so that you can see her clit. Then place the tip of your left pointer finger on the upper left quadrant (her upper left) of her clit, and slide it around a bit until there is a feeling of it “locking into” her perfect spot. Finding her spot will take practice, so don’t be discouraged if it takes time.

4 - Begin to stroke her clit slowly, up and down, with the tip of your pointer finger. Use the lightest possible pressure to begin and increase from there. The strokes should be relatively short, no more than half an inch in length and should be as consistent as you can make them.

5 - Both partners pay attention to the point of contact between his finger and her clit. Notice how orgasmic sensation rises, peaks and falls. When your mind begins to wander… just come back to the sensation of his finger and her clit. Everything else will unfold naturally from there.

If you decide to commit to an OM-ing practice, Daedone shares that you will come to see, “a stroke that began so light and soft it was almost hard to feel becomes more and more potent. Both her genitals and his finger develop an exquisite level of sensitivity, to the point where they can feel much more than they did at the beginning…”

6 - Communicate

During OM, you are encouraged to speak your sensations – sharing exactly what you are experiencing (and not your emotions about the experience). The stroked partner is also encouraged to share if they would like adjustments. If the stroking partner has questions about their stroke, they should be asked in “yes/no” format to avoid significant dialogue during the experience. 

7 - Grounding

When two minutes are left (i.e. at minute 13), the stroking partner states aloud that two minutes remain. When the full 15 minutes are done, the stroking partner shifts the strokes downward and after a few downward strokes, presses firmly on their partner’s genitals. The purpose of this exercise is to help stop the nerve endings from firing and completes the experience. Some partners may decide to progress to other sexual activity, but this is not necessary. The experience can simply end with grounding.

7 - Share Frames

As a final step, once OM-ing is complete, partners share frames – the recollection of a specific sensation experienced during the OM. The purpose of this exercise is to acknowledge what just occurred, understand the sensations your partner experienced and seal the experience into memory.

The Wrap-up

You now have everything you need to start your OM-ing practice. Next week, we'll wrap up our series on Slow Sex with guidance on stroking male genitals and experiencing 4-month long (!!) orgasms.

Thank you!