Orgasm as women’s work? Rethinking pleasure, ‘sex’ and the power dynamics of orgasm through the embodied experiences of orgasmic meditation practitioners

Katy Pilcher

doi:10.1177/13634607231208051

Orgasm as women’s work? Rethinking pleasure, ‘sex’ and the power dynamics of orgasm through the embodied experiences of orgasmic meditation practitioners

Katy Pilcher^*

^*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

1 Citation (Scopus)

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Abstract

Drawing upon interviews with 33 practitioners of ‘orgasmic meditation’ in the UK and US, I question the extent to which the practice of orgasmic meditation might facilitate ways to uncouple orgasm from negative gendered constructions. I explore how the practice in some cases enables people to establish clear bodily boundaries and encourages women to centre their own pleasure, as well as opening up space to rethink what constitutes a ‘sexual’ practice. Theorised through a queer feminist perspective, I argue that tensions remain with orgasm as a form of women’s work, with an onus upon women to police bodily boundaries, and with moments where boundaries are broken.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	557-574
Number of pages	18
Journal	Sexualities
Volume	28
Issue number	1-2
Early online date	22 Oct 2023
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1177/13634607231208051
Publication status	Published - Feb 2025

Bibliographical note

Funding

The author disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by the British Academy/Leverhulme Small Grants Scheme [SG162671].

Funders	Funder number
British Academy/Leverhulme	SG162671

Keywords

Consent
gender
orgasm
orgasmic meditation
pleasure
power
sex

Access to Document

10.1177/13634607231208051Licence: CC BY 4.0

pilcher-2023-orgasm-as-women-s-work-rethinking-pleasure-sex-and-the-power-dynamics-of-orgasm-through-the-embodied
Copyright © The Author(s) 2023. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
Final published version, 575 KBLicence: CC BY 4.0

Cite this

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Orgasm as women’s work? Rethinking pleasure, ‘sex’ and the power dynamics of orgasm through the embodied experiences of orgasmic meditation practitioners

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Funding

Keywords

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