I Talked To My Mom About Orgasm…
I TALKED ABOUT FEMALE ORGASM WITH MY MOM!!!
FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER!!!!!!
AND I RECORDED IT!!!!
Last week, I asked you to do something brave and probably a little uncomfortable: I asked you to tell me why you think female orgasm is a struggle for so many women, and to share stories of your unique struggles.
Even though I’m working my tail off to create a world where we don’t feel embarrassed or ashamed about female orgasm, I know that we’re not there yet.
In the spirit of encouraging all of us to stretch our comfort zones, I decided to challenge myself too.
So I decided to talk to my mom. About female orgasm. For the first time ever!
About a week ago, I realized that my mom and I have never talked about female orgasm, or even pleasure, specifically.
We’ve never really talked about sex that much in general. In fact, my original desire to become a sex therapist stemmed from my parents’ awkward attempt to have “the talk” with me. I could see how uncomfortable they were, and I remember thinking, “Why does this have to be so hard?”
In the last few years, my parents and I have had a few conversations about my career (they’re very supportive!), but we haven’t had super substantial conversations about sexuality.
(Actually, the most meaningful conversation we had was just a few months ago, when she was called for jury duty. She was being interviewed as a potential juror, and the prosecutor asked what her children do for work. My mom told me that she proudly responded, ‘My daughter teaches women how to masturbate and orgasm!’ She said the lawyer’s face turned red and the courtroom broke out into laughter, but my mom held her head high!)
So a few days ago, I sent my mom this text:
My mom was pretty hesitant initially, especially since I didn’t tell her the specific topic of the conversation until I had hit “record” on my video chat.
But we ended up having an amazing conversation! So amazing that I want you to watch the entire thing!
I asked her questions like:
- “What were you taught about female pleasure or orgasm when you were a kid?” (My mom grew up in an ultra-religious household.)
- “Do you ever feel shame about your pleasure or your orgasm?”
- “If you could have ‘the talk’ with me again, what do you think you would say?”
- “What would you say to a woman who is struggling with having orgasms and feeling like she deserves them?”
When we started the conversation, I was nervous about her getting upset or not wanting to continue. (We even had a snafu with the call-in number for the teleconference, and she thought I was playing a trick on her!)
But as we talked, I found myself growing surprisingly emotional! I even started tearing up at some of her responses.
Later that day, Xander and I went on a walk with our pugs, and I told him I was still feeling surprised by how emotional the conversation made me.
“Well”, he said, “I think you probably got so emotional because you finally got to have the conversation about sex that you never got to have as a little girl.”
It wasn’t until he said those words out loud that I realized that that’s what had felt so powerful and healing about the conversation.
The girl inside of me, who did have a lot of questions about sex, who did want to have a conversation with her parents, who did want to know that her body and her experience were important and beautiful and worthy, finally got to hear all of those words from her mom.
I’m tearing up again just typing this!
I know I’m really lucky that my mom was willing to have this conversation with me, so I also asked her, “What motherly message would you want to share with other women who may not be able to have these kinds of conversations with their moms?”
Guys, I think my mom has some sort of sex therapist gene, because she had some amazing answers for you! Watch until the very end to see what answer made me snap along in response!
I hope getting to listen to this conversation is even a tiny fraction as healing for you as it was for me.
And if you feel inspired to have a similar kind of conversation with one of your loved ones, I’m going to be back in touch next week with some tips.
For now, I would love to hear if any of my mom’s words ring true for you. Listen to our conversation and let me know!