I’ve been sceptical. Not about orgasms. I’m very pro-orgasm, but about the idea that there’s some technique out there that most of us are missing. That there are multiple ways to orgasm (which, by the way, included from one expert with whom I’ve spoken, a cervical orgasm!). I’ve heard it from the tantra crowd. I’ve heard it from the kink community. And I’ve never quite bought it. Also, I know how hard it can be for so many women to orgasm, so the expectation that somehow we women are inadequate if we can’t all orgasm in five different ways, bothers me.
Then I spoke to Steve Bodansky, and I started to come around to the idea that perhaps orgasms could last longer than several seconds, more than a minute or two.
Steve is 76, has written nearly 20 books, and has spent the better part of five decades studying, demonstrating, and teaching what he calls Extended Massive Orgasm; EMO, for short. He didn’t invent it exactly. He discovered it in a commune in California in the late 1970s (of course), where courses on sensuality were taught like any other discipline: you studied, you practised, you had to perform for an hour in front of people before you were certified. His wife, Vera, who eventually became his partner in all of this, got there first. He was one of her practice partners.
They went on to teach five other people. Then they made a video. Then they wrote a book. When the publisher saw the name of their course, they insisted the book carry the same title. It came out alongside an article in Talk magazine, Tina Brown’s short-lived but brilliant publication, and it was a hit. Their second book had illustrations drawn from photographs. Joy of Sex vibes, Steve confirmed.
The core of EMO is this: most people, especially women, have learned to imitate the way men orgasm, tensing up, pushing harder, reaching for a peak, and releasing it. Steve says that’s exactly backwards. The extended orgasm is clitoral, it’s manual, and it requires the opposite of effort. Relaxation. No force fields, as he put it. The person being pleasured surrenders to sensation; the person doing the pleasuring controls the pace, deliberately pulling back before the receiver tips over, a technique he calls peaking. You might know it as edging. In tantra, they call it riding the wave. The principle is the same: extend the plateau instead of rushing the finish.
What stayed with me most wasn’t the technique itself. It was what Steve said about his wife, Vera.
She was still doing public demonstrations of extended orgasm into the mid-2000s. She was still orgasmic, he told me, well into her 80s. When she developed Alzheimer’s and could no longer initiate, he found that the body remembered what the mind had forgotten: a kiss or a hug would produce a physical response, a contraction, that years of practice had made almost automatic. He navigated her decline with enormous tenderness, and something he said has stuck with me: the earlier you start, the more you invest in your own pleasure, the more that capacity stays with you.
He’s 76 now, sexually active, occasionally self-pleasuring once or twice a week, happy with where things are. He told me he sometimes doesn’t ejaculate and isn’t sure whether that’s good or not. His tantra friends say one thing, his urologist says another. I appreciated that he didn’t pretend to have all the answers.
What Matters
An extended orgasm is clitoral. Manual stimulation is the most efficient route, but the technique is about relaxation and attention, not mechanics.
Peaking — deliberately backing off before climax — extends pleasure and builds capacity. The kink world calls it edging; the principle is the same.
Orgasmic capacity doesn’t have to diminish with age. Vera was having orgasms into her 80s. Steve has taught women in their 70s and 80s.
The more you practise, the more conditioned your body becomes — and that conditioning can outlast cognitive decline.
Men can do this too. Edging to extended orgasm works across bodies.
Self-pleasure is how you learn what you like. The more you do it, the more sensitive and responsive you become.
You can find Steve Bodansky here:
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