Sense Project

A couple of questions related to sex and pleasure, answered by our resident sexology stagiaire, Gabrielle!

Q: How many orgasms can you have in a day?

There aren’t any real limits to how many orgasms you can experience in a day.

But…

Different people have different “recovery periods” between orgasms - basically, the time it takes for blood to flow back to those areas that it just rushed out of. Usually female-bodied people are more disposed to get more orgasms or multiple orgasms than male-bodied people. That distinction comes from the fact that male-bodied people have a recovery period that’s longer and different than for female-bodied people - it’s the period after an ejaculation where you can’t get another erection. Female-bodied people also have that recovery period after an orgasm, but it can be shorter or non-existent in some cases. Other factors like stress, mental and physical health, confidence or trust between partners, drug or alcohol use, your age, etc… can have an impact on your capacity to have an orgasm, and by default, many orgasms. Sometimes, focusing on the number of orgasms you are having or trying to achieve orgasm can prevent you from actually “getting there”, because your mind and body are too preoccupied! Just keep in mind that having an orgasm is not the ultimate goal of sexual activity, so the number of orgasms that you have doesn’t qualify the quality of your sexual activity.

Q: My first time with my girl friend, I didn’t last very long, and I think she was disappointed. What can I do?

We say this all the time, but the basic thing in any relationship is communication. If you want to be sure that you’re on the same page as your partner and you really want to know what they’re thinking, you should start a conversation with them. We can stress for a long time about what the other person is thinking, when there might be nothing going on. If you feel like your girlfriend might believe that you didn’t last very long, it might be a good idea to address it with her, instead of letting these feelings grow in the background of your relationship.

I also think that the notion of lasting very long is pretty subjective: how long a person can and should keep an erection is different from one person to another. Usually, our expectations are very high, because we think that sex should be a certain perfect way. Read the rest of this entry »

Me too!

While this video is heterosexist because it assumes that all women enjoy penises and that only women enjoy penises, it still confirms part of what Hugo Vaillancourt shares on p.234 of our amazing Peer Education Manual. Are you big enough? See for yourself…

Am I Big Enough?

By Hugo Vaillancourt

When it comes to penis size, “size doesn’t matter” is the politically correct mantra constantly repeated over and over. Yet, “size doesn’t matter” should be recognized for what it really is: a well-meaning lie and an attempt to avoid the delicate matter at hand. Let’s face it: if you’re a guy, you’ve probably wondered if you were big enough at some point in your life. If penis size wasn’t such a chief concern among males, you would be getting much less obnoxious spam in your e-mail box. So penis size does matter to an awful lot of people.

We live in a society that has eroticized huge penises. There are very few male porn actors or models who have a smaller or even average-sized penis - and for us young men, porn can sometimes be the only measure of comparison. However, porn is misleading: It’s intended to be fantasy, it doesn’t represent reality and it’s chock-full of stereotypes.

Here are the cold, hard facts. Most erect penises measure between 12 and 17 centimetres in length (between 5 and 7 inches approximately) and 4 cm in diameter (one inch and a half) at the widest portion. The size of a flaccid (soft) penis is not proportional to its size in erection; actually, penises that are longer when flaccid expand much less in erection than smaller soft penises. Penis size is completely unconnected to the size of other body parts: big hands and big feet do not mean a big dick. Finally, a teenager’s penis usually takes a few years to fully develop; if you haven’t hit 16, or even 17-18 years old, odds are that you still have some growing up to do below the belt.

Some people do like bigger penises: they enjoy having a handful, or they get more stimulation out of being penetrated by it (in this regard, girth - thickness - seems to make more of a difference than length). However, there are disadvantages to being “large”. It can make vaginal or anal penetration more difficult, even painful; just like penises, body openings also come in larger or smaller sizes which may not be compatible with a large penis. Big penises can also be intimidating to some people.

On the other hand, having a smaller penis can be reassuring to your partner and make penetration much easier.Small penises can also be sucked quite effortlessly for a long time, which is a bonus for both you and your partner, something that doesn’t go even for average-sized penises (unless you have a really big mouth). Finally, penis size makes no physical difference to the pleasure its owner gets out of it.

Yet, even though the size of your penis can impact your sexual activities, there are so many more things that are important to having a fulfilling sex life. Chemistry and an openness to communicate with your partner. Imagination, creativity and sensuality. Daring tongues and fingers. Enthusiasm and shamelessness. In a sexual relationship without these things, even a foot-long banana will not prevent the relationship from being dull, mechanical and routine. After all, the brain is the Number One sex organ. That, and maybe the heart.

Tags: Dick, Erect, Erection, Fantasy, Flaccid, Heterosexism, Peer Education Manual, penetration, Penis, Penis size, Phallic, Phallus, porn, Pornography, Teenager, youth