One
Foreplay:
In
December pst welcomed Dr. Pooja Lakshmin, a neuroscientist who studies brain
function at the Rutgers University Orgasm Laboratory where they study the
correspondences between brains and sexual stimulation. Subjects volunteer to
crawl into an MRI chamber and bring themselves to climax, or sometimes bring a
partner who strokes them into climax while scientists monitor which parts of
their brain lights up.
But
Pooja came not to speak about her day job—instead she spoke about OM, orgasmic
meditation, a form of meditation she practices where a partner stimulates the
top left quadrant of your clitoris (this area has the most nerve endings) for
fifteen minutes. During this time both stimulator and stimulated hyper-vigilantly
maintains awareness of every aspect of their bodies and their minds. The point
is not to achieve orgasm though sometimes, before you get good at OM, orgasm is
a side result.
Eager
questions peppered with giggles followed Pooja’s talk. People want to know:
+
If there are differences in brain activity during male and female orgasms (not
so much.)
+If
there’s a difference in the male and female brains (yes—men have more grey
matter while women have larger language centers--though I’m not sure what, if
anything this means.)
+What
role fantasy plays in arousal (plenty) and climax (not so much—climax is an
involuntary reaction, albeit a pleasurable one, to physical stimulus.)
+ Are there differences in brain activity
between self-stimulation, with or without a dildo (Pooja says dildos are the
equivalent of jack hammers) and partnered interactions (yes—because with
partners surrender happens, which activates, or actually deactivates parts of
the brain.)
Try
as I might, my brain has difficulty keeping track of the brains complex
landscape: two hemispheres divided into multiple regions—each with its own
distinct characteristic. Some activities and purposes cross between regions or
express in multiple areas at once. The Limbic system, which sexual pleasure
lights particularly brightly houses aspects of memory and emotion.
Simultaneously, as arousal builds, activity in the critical, analytical
frontal-cortex dims. I suppose this is evidence of surrender, or it’s possible
brain waves emanating from one region affects the weather in another.
It
is believed meditation leads to clarity and an enhanced capacity for
concentration, the brain firing full tilt. I wonder though what mixing these
two different brain states, the all “on” of meditation with the on/off of
sexual stimulation leads to besides an endorphin colored afterglow and a wish
for the greater good? It was hard for Pooja to say.
Choosing
a menu for the event I tried to steer clear of dirty jokes though temptation
got the best me in stuffed Medjool dates that lay prone next to skewer-stiffened
sauce-drenched satays. The centerpiece of the meal was Mapo Tofu, a dish
described as numbing, tender, hot, and spicy—the Sichuan peppercorns that are
central to the dish creates an anesthetizing tingle that allows one to perceive
the floral undertones of the searing chilies that flavor the tofu. It was
served with brown rice drizzled with tahini and flax seed—a staple at
meditation retreats, and a salad of lively biting mustard greens modulated with
succulent fleshy persimmon.
2
Desire:
In
my weekly writing class the teacher gives a prompt, then sets a timer for five
minutes. This weeks: “You turn a key, open a door, cross a threshold into a
kitchen—what do you smell cooking? How does this make you feel?” Charged with
taping into stream-of-consciousness my hand stalls; I am thinking: I walk
through the door of an empty house, live alone; I am the cook, if I was out
nothing’s cooking. Glaring facts short-circuit an imagined lick of scent. Broth?
Bread? Burnt sugar? The sense memory is supposed to generate a story. The scent,
generating “remembrances of things passed” percolates desire.
It
is not the thought of an old Aunt’s tea-soaked cookie that fires up my brain. I
imagine opening my door to find a cook in my kitchen wiping buttered hands onto
a worn linen cloth before reaching out to greet me. I thrill at the thought of
relinquishing culinary control. Is it the food or are the food and the cook
rolled to one? Is it scent that lights up the same parts of my brain as
clitoral stimulation?
Orgasm
is an involuntary reaction caused by physical stimulation. Desire makes it
better, or more intense but at some point the conscious mind (though not the
brain waves) stills. Is hunger similar; it too is an involuntary reaction
stimulated and intensified by the smell of something good to eat. The smell
drives the story but at some point the story no longer matters. Instinct takes
over until you’ve had your fill.
After
class I prepare a simple supper—yesterday’s soup made from the bones of last
weeks’ roast, thickened with 2 cups of frozen beans from Christmas Eve’s
cassoulet. A sliced avocado with lime and olive oil offers bright
accompaniment.
3
Afterglow:
Having
cooked, having eaten, having sponged away the crumbs I turn off lights and head
upstairs. Rising scents trapped in the stairwell, living ghosts of supper greet
me as I climb towards the comfort of my bed.
By
morning these lingering scents will have dissipated but in the moment they
spark not desire, for I am on the other side of hunger, but a sense of well-being.
Is this akin to post-coital bliss, or the oneness generated by ohm? No longer
tied to visceral instinct the after-scent becomes sensual evidence lighting or
maybe dimming region of my brain. In the moment the scents transform, becoming
memories almost impossible to recall until new scents call them forward as a
point of comparison. One scent, tying me to others.
