Difficult Orgasms? How About Your Pelvic Floor?
Orgasms are different for everyone: some people are not able to climax through penetration and for some it takes a long time; some people need the aid of toys and others can’t feel pleasure during intercourse; some people have sleep orgasms and for some the clitoris can be too sensitive, it becomes painful.
Having an orgasm can be the easiest thing on Earth, or the hardest.
A reason why you can’t climax could be related to your pelvic floor. Knowing your anatomy is fundamental to understanding how these two things are connected.
The clitoris is the organ dedicated to pleasure. The clitoris is a small organ with over 8,000 nerve endings at the tip alone. The clitoris peeks out from the top of the vulva and is often covered by a hood and extends downwards, inside of your labia. The clitoral hood has 2 pelvic floor muscles that attach directly onto it; the bulbocavernosus and ischiocavernosus muscles. Both of these muscles greatly influence the clitoris.
The clitoris can be stimulated in different ways and from different spots. Most of its parts are invisible, inside your body, except for the “head”. When you stimulate your clitoris from the inside of the vaginal canal, orgasms can be clitoral or vaginal, but it's always the clitoris that makes us climax, not the vagina. The only thing that changes is the spot where the stimulation comes from.
When the clitoris is stimulated and we are aroused, it behaves as a penis would do: it becomes turgid and bigger.
This happens because the penis and the clitoris have a very similar structure (in fact, as embryos, we develop differently but from the same origin). So our clitoris, as the penis, will need a great amount of blood when it’s aroused, to expand and let us feel pleasure.
That’s why the state of our pelvic floor is fundamental and can influence our chances of having an orgasm.
If we have a hypertonic pelvic floor, the musculature that wraps around the clitoris remains contracted. This will prevent the clitoris from having the space and flexibility to expand. When aroused, the clitoris starts to expand but won’t find a musculature ready to adapt and relax in the right way. This contracture will also influence the blood flow, because it will be more difficult to irrorate the clitoris correctly.
Feeling pleasure from an internal stimulation of the clitoris also depends on the pelvic floor muscles that surround it; if they are able to contract and relax correctly, this will mimic a massage for the clitoris and increase the pleasure and extension of the clitoris. If those muscles stay contracted, they will “cage” the clitoris and squeeze it. However, if the muscles are low-toned, they won’t be able to “massage” it enough to stimulate it.
Another situation that may be linked to a hypertonic pelvic floor is, when the clitoris is very sensitive or hurts frequently after an orgasm.
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You may also like: What Is Your Pelvic Pain Trying to Tell You?
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However, this is not the only reason why we could have problems reaching climax. There are many variables: our mind could be elsewhere (never forget that pleasure starts from our brain); the situation, environment or person with us could make us feel uncomfortable; we don’t prioritise what we like, so it becomes difficult to explain it to the other person; we could feel uncomfortable or ashamed about asking for what we want; we could have a lot of anxiety about reaching climax; we could think there is something “wrong” with us because we can’t climax as fast as we’d hoped or need a toy to reach it.
There truly could be a number of reasons why we may not reach climax but it's important to remember that there’s no right or wrong way to experience orgasms - and you don’t always have to have one. What we should focus on is discovering the different variants of pleasure that will suit us best.
If something I’ve said sparks a question about your situation, please speak to a pelvic floor expert to help you out.