I learned a new word, team, so now I’m going to inflict it on all of you: interoception. It refers to the sense by which you perceive what is currently going on in your body. How do you feel physically? Are you hungry? Does the tickling, dry sensation in your throat mean you’re thirsty? Are you horny, perhaps? Is your left elbow itching? Interoception is perception of your internal physical needs and wants. Even though I’ve only just learned the word, I have actually written about interoception before: this piece on drinking water was deliberately crafted to manipulate your interoception into convincing you that you’d love to drink a nice, cool glass of fresh water. One of my favourite ever posts, about the ache that settles at the entrance to my cunt when I’m desperate to get fucked, is also about this kind of perception. Quite a lot of the stuff I write here is designed to trigger horny feelings, so to heighten those feelings I often lean in to words or phrases (and sometimes specific instructions I want you to follow) to make you tune in to the way your body is feeling, and pay a little extra attention to those parts of it that are yearning to come. I think it’s this kind of perception that helped me learn how to orgasm during PIV sex.
I learned this word thanks to a Netflix series from 2022 which I’d not seen before. It’s called The Principles of Pleasure and it’s extremely fucking cool. Lots of different people, including sex educators I rate hugely – Emily Nagoski, Ericka Hart, Dirty Lola – talk about pleasure in a way that is far more in-depth than I’ve seen in similar shows. They challenge sex myths, demo sex toys without gendering them or shaming, and they also cover concepts that are layers deeper than the surface-level education which was available on late-night Channel 4 when I was young. It’s rare for a sex-based TV show to teach me something new, because I’m a swotty little know-it-all who reads a lot about this shit. Nevertheless: interoception. I learned this word, and it reminded me of a story I have not yet properly told you.
How I learned to orgasm during PIV sex
For those who aren’t swotty little know-it-alls when it comes to sex, ‘PIV’ is just a shorthand for ‘penis in vagina’. The most common type of sex I’ve had in my life and – back in the day, when I first started getting stuck in to shagging – it was the Main One. The One We Did Most Often. Although I spent plenty of time giving blow jobs to my spunk-drained first boyfriend, most of the time we focused on the kind of sex where his dick went inside me, and we wriggled around together until he came.
He came.
Understandable. He was young, and so was I, and our sex ed had basically consisted of a few lessons in which parts go where (if you’re cisgender and heterosexual), what might make a baby, and which activities could leave you with an STI. No one had really given us any information about pleasure, we had to figure that out on our own. And one of the things I figured out, blissfully early, was how to make myself come when he and I were having sex.
I remember this vividly, as I’m sure you can imagine, because although I’d been reliably making myself come in bed alone, or in the shower, or sometimes sprawled on the bathroom floor at home, the revelation that I could orgasm during PIV sex as well was deeply exciting.
We were at a friend’s house, on a Saturday. Her parents were away, so we had the run of the place, and as was traditional those of us who were coupled up had permission to go and use her parents’ bedroom if we wanted to shag. Which we absolutely did. At that age, if you gave us permission to bang then chances were we’d be all up inside each other before you could yell ‘don’t get jizz on anything!’ up the stairs.
We were in a slightly adapted version of missionary position: him between my thighs, my hips tilted and legs wrapped round his waist. He had a habit of reaching beneath me to grab my bum while we were fucking (lovely), and I also tried to entangle my arms somewhere amidst all the other limbs so I could get a good grip of his arse in return. His face was buried in my neck, and I was looking up at the ceiling, squirming a little to try and get a decent angle, when I suddenly felt that cunt-throb rush that I’d learned was a fairly reliable indicator that an orgasm might be on the way.
OOOOH!
I gripped him a little tighter, and tried to keep my hips at the same angle. Holding my hands in a very specific position at the base of his bum, I tugged him into me – guiding his stroke. A slight twist of my wrists as I gripped him meant I could nudge him to fuck at an ever-so-slightly more upward angle. Now that I was being a bit more proactive in directing his movements, I could also give him a little physical feedback on pace: as I squeezed his arse and yanked him into me, I tried to encourage him to keep the pace as steady as he could. Not ‘fast as you can’, which is what teenage boys a significant number of men believe is required, but the firm and steady pace that I actually need in order to come. Obviously I didn’t use my words: I was young and therefore a fool. I basically just fucked him into me by dragging his arse and hips so his cock would stimulate exactly the right parts, with a pace slow enough that my body had time to settle in and appreciate each sensation.
I essentially used that dude’s body to masturbate. I am not ashamed.
He was fucking delighted.
From that point on, when we were fucking, the way I grabbed his arse would be an extremely reliable indicator of when I was close. What’s more, he had a seriously valuable insight into not ‘how sex should be done’ in a generic and unhelpful sense, but ‘how sex should specifically be done if he wants to make his girlfriend come’, which was far more practical at that precise moment in time. Naturally there was some delicate territory to navigate where I had to let him know that this particular angle/pace was key, without letting on that I’d faked a lot of orgasms in the past, but he didn’t delve too deeply into that. Instead he just allowed himself to plunge deeply (at the correct angle and pace) into my cunt over and over, and the specifics were lost in a flurry of vaginal contractions and general moaning noises.
That is how I learned to orgasm during sex.
How can you orgasm during PIV sex?
Cards on the table: not everyone can do this. Some aspects of sex can be improved with technique, or by creating an emotional environment in which someone feels safe to do something different, but a significant part of how you orgasm is down to the specific physical make-up of your body. I have friends who can only come with a very particular type of g-spot stimulation, and others who can only make it when you’re rubbing at their clit like you’re trying to win on a scratchcard. Some who need to be touched far more gently than I do, which I often find hard to pull off (pun intended) because I personally need a pretty firm hand (ditto). Other people don’t like penetration at all, or prefer anal penetration (anal orgasms are possible for some people who don’t have a prostate, but usually easier for those who do). It’s all about your body and it’s unique and beautiful snowflake-like arrangement, combined with your mental state, your experience, your relationship with the person you’re shagging, the lighting in the room, your mood at the time and… oh fuck there’s so much that can impact this. I want to hammer this home because I don’t want anyone taking this blog post and sending it to a vag-having partner and saying GOTN’s written about the cast-iron, guaranteed way to make you orgasm during PIV sex. When it comes to sex, we’re all unique and different – there’s no such thing as a ‘guaranteed trick to blow someone’s mind in bed’. Except this one, which is not about dick.
However. If you reckon you might be able to come during PIV sex, or you’ve done it before but not been able to reliably replicate it, I reckon you could potentially improve your chances by interoception, and putting your learnings into practice.
Try to tune in to your body, if you can. Personally I think this is easier to do with a measured, steady pace rather than something incredibly rapid. I’m not saying that’s how you have to fuck all the time, just that a measured pace can help with getting attuned to particular sensations, and recognising exactly what is working and what isn’t. Whether there’s a slight angle change that could be helpful, or if deeper/shallower strokes might work better. Maybe it means an adjustment in position so you can use fingers on your clit at the same time. Sometimes it means you’ll recognise particular noises your partner makes, or words they whisper, which cause those ripples of orgasm to build a little more intensely. It isn’t just physical things that make your body feel a certain way, after all, it’s also about recognising which other sensory inputs have an effect on your horn.
If you want to delve a little deeper into the things which might be affecting/influencing your desire and pleasure, you might want to listen to this discussion about ‘assemblages’ on the Culture Sex Relationships podcast. It’s a chat between me and my pal Justin who runs the kickass sex ed website Bish for young people, as well as this awesome podcast, which is more for grown-ups and super interesting and meta about all things sex and connection.
Communicate what you need
Boring, I know, to keep banging the ‘communication‘ drum in a sex advice piece, but ultimately that’s a core part of how I managed to orgasm during PIV sex. Once you’ve got a handle on what works, you can encourage the people you’re fucking to give you the stimulation you need. And the beautiful thing is, now that we’re no longer teenagers who shit themselves at the idea of having a conversation, we don’t need to worry so much about guiding people with specific hand movements and flicks-of-the-wrist (though that is fun too). Adults who know how to articulate our needs can just… tell our partners what works!
In advice guides about this sort of stuff, often the conversations about sexual needs sound straightforward and (dare I say it) dull. “I prefer to be touched very gently, with wet fingers,” and whatnot. I’m not saying that’s a bad thing to say, it’s great to give your partner that info. But most sex ed guides are limited by the fact that they have to keep things informative rather than horny, and I don’t have that particular bind. In my real life, these conversations are usually way more fun:
“Please gimme that first stroke really sloooowly.”
“Suck my nipples, oh yeah fuck like that.”
“You feel so fucking good.”
“Slow down, let me feel every fucking detail of it.”
“That’s it. That’s good. Oh god, fuck yeah please. Just like that. Please.”
“Seriously if you keep going at this exact pace I’m gonna come so hard round your dick.”
You get the idea.
When I wrote the notes for this blog post on my phone last night, I worried that the overall message sounded a little bit selfish. Is it self-serving to focus so much on my own pleasure that I’ve literally written a story about how I get it from the people I am fucking?
But in the sober light of day I realise I needn’t worry. The vast majority of fun sex partners will be overjoyed to learn exactly what feels good to you in bed, and be delighted to have helpful instruction (whether verbal, physical or ideally both) in how to get you feeling those delicious rushes of holy-fuck-I’m-about-to-come-so-hard. I don’t think I know anyone good in bed who wouldn’t welcome your eager input into exactly how they can fuck you even more effectively.
So, yeah. Give it a go. It’s fun. Interoception, followed by communication and direction with the specific goal of your own sexual pleasure. Mould, pose, guide, and (if they’re up for it) use your partner’s body to have a wank. Give explicit instructions, focus on what’s working, then keep doing that. And again. That’s it. Oh yeah.
Fuck yeah that’s exactly it.
Keep going. Keep going. Don’t stop…
If you like this sort of thing, here’s a similar(ish) piece I wrote a while ago about getting sexual pleasure from a dick when you’re going on top. And if you reckon you’re all good with interoception and recognising physical sensations, here’s a piece about how to identify (and articulate) your emotional landscape instead.