Every shopping mall has that big directory with the red dot and the words YOU ARE HERE. I have stood in front of those maps for whole minutes. I nodded wisely and traced a route with one finger. The store I wanted was behind me the entire time.
Most of us do the same thing with our own pleasure. We stare at the map of our supposed wants. We squint at the red dot, lost.
Nobody ever drew us a proper map. The few we were handed had one destination and a lot of fine print.
So here is a map. It has a red dot, and the dot is yours.
This map will show you your room in the house. It will show you the door next to you. It will show you the most fun pages to read first.
You will also learn something I care about more. Every spot for the dot is a good place to be.
The House
This book is a house. Here is the full tour, with the furniture.
The Doorway. Here, something is going on, and you notice. A flush of warmth, a tingle, a tension low in your belly, a surprise during a workout or a bus ride.
You may still be searching for the word. You may still be waiting for your first orgasm. You are reaching for understanding and a little ease in your own skin. It is a lovely room, and some women stay here for years.
The Living Room. You recognize your arousal, and sometimes you can invite it to stay. You may feel pleasure and wetness without a peak.
You may feel a peak on the way. You are reaching for reliable awareness, and the knack of turning a spark into a glow.
The Bedroom. Here, orgasm happens. Maybe for the first time, maybe now and then, maybe regularly, maybe every night at bedtime. You may be looking for a dependable route, or more variety, or more intensity, or simply to understand the whole thing.
Most books stop at this room.
The Studio. You have a trusted route, and you want more range. You want stronger waves, different kinds, better timing, longer ripples of pleasure, and the muscles running the whole production.
Think of it as the gym and the dance floor of the house. Its lighting beats any gym I have ever joined.
Then there is a staircase. A small sign on the banister reads: nothing upstairs beats anything downstairs. Upstairs is simply less common, a little more patient, and quieter.
The Terrace. Up here you play with less and less touch. Pressure through your clothes, movement, muscle tension.
Some women had a surprise at the gym. A core exercise became rather more than an exercise. It has a view.
The Sky Room. It is the top of the house, and the rarest. Some women find pleasure with almost nothing but attention. It comes through breath, sound, imagination, and the right kind of story.
It is the least common room and the least studied. I will tell you honestly: nobody can promise you a visit. But a surprising number of women tell me of their visits, and some of them live there.
Those are the rooms. Here are a few more things about the house, to keep you oriented.
The rooms are places, and nobody is promoted from the Living Room. The Bedroom hands out no badges.
You can live in more than one room at once. Many women do. You can have a favorite room, a guest room, and a closet still unopened.
You can move in either direction, at any time, for the rest of your life. Plenty of women wander upstairs in their forties and come back down for good reasons in their sixties, and the house does not mind.
And you can stay exactly where you stand. In fact, I would like to make it official.
The Big Idea
Here is the idea behind this whole book, said plainly.
Pleasure is a range, a dimmer with every setting in between. Most of us were handed the picture of a staircase with one prize at the top. Most of us placed ourselves on the staircase or off it. That picture left a lot of women feeling like failures at something natural.
The range is wider than the picture. At one end sits a whisper of warmth, simply noticed. At the other end, for some women, sits full release with almost no touch at all, in the middle of a stretch, a song, a breath. And all along the way there are hundreds of ordinary, lovely places.
This book is about widening your range, in your favorite direction, with your clothes on, at your own speed. I call the far end of the range clothes-on orgasm potential. That is a plain phrase for a romantic idea.
The idea is this. Your body can do more than you were ever told. Some of it unlocks with surprisingly little.
I cannot promise you a key. I can promise to label every idea, solid or good guess. I can promise to make the trying worthwhile in itself.
Hold on to this sentence for the rest of the book. Staying in your favorite room is a full success.
Do you live in the Bedroom and love it there? You have arrived. Do you spend your best hours in the Living Room? You have arrived.
Does the Terrace feel like a bit much? Stay on the ground floor. You know your own taste.
Wanting more is lovely. Staying content is also lovely. The only wrong answer is the one someone else wrote for you.
THE MYTH: The upper floor belongs to the masters of everything downstairs.
THE TRUTH: Upstairs is for the curious, a different thing entirely. Some women tell me of finding the Terrace or the Sky Room first, with the rooms below still unexplored. Nobody checks tickets at the staircase. The rooms are in a house, and a house has more than one door.
The Pleasure Map
Now for the fun part. This short quiz has no grader, and every answer is a right answer. It is a way of finding your red dot.
Get a pen, or just keep the answers in your head. Answer each statement with Yes, Sometimes, or Not yet. Go with your first instinct. Skip any question you dislike.
- I notice warmth, tingling, tension, or wetness in my body, with or without a reason.
- I can usually recognize my own arousal.
- I can sometimes build that feeling on purpose.
- I have had an orgasm.
- I can usually reach orgasm at will.
- I can reach orgasm in more than one way.
- I know the feel of my pelvic muscles, tightened and released.
- I can make my orgasms stronger or different on purpose.
- I have felt arousal or release from movement or exercise, with little or no direct touch.
- I can build arousal through pressure or movement, fully dressed.
- I have felt arousal or release from breath, sound, thought, or a story alone.
- I can reach that feeling by choice.
And one more. It matters more than all the others.
13. What do I most want right now? Pick several, or all.
Understanding. Comfort. Reliability. Intensity.
Strength. Independence. Shared pleasure. Or something I have no word for yet.
How To Read Your Answers
Look at the thinning of your Yeses.
Run your eye down the list. You will probably see a run of Yeses at the top. Then come some Sometimes, then some Not yets.
The turn from Yeses to Sometimes marks your room. The turn from Sometimes to Not yet marks the door next to you.
Questions 1 to 3 live in the Doorway and the Living Room. Questions 4 to 6 live in the Bedroom. Questions 7 and 8 live in the Studio.
Questions 9 and 10 live on the Terrace. Questions 11 and 12 live in the Sky Room.
Here are two examples. Yes to 1 through 5 and Sometimes to 6? You live in the Bedroom, and the Studio is your next door.
Yes to almost everything and Not yet to 11 and 12? You have a lovely ground floor and a curious view of the stairs.
A few things to know about your results.
Mixed answers are common. Many women have a Yes at question 9 and a Not yet at question 6. The rooms overlap, and bodies ignore floor plans.
Did you answer Not yet to everything? Welcome to the Doorway. I mean it kindly.
It is the best seat in the house. Everything lies ahead of you, and nothing lies behind.
Did you answer Yes to everything? Congratulations on your very comfortable life. Read on anyway. There is usually an untried room, and I intend to tempt you.
Did any question make you sad or uneasy? Did any bring up something painful? That is information too, and it is okay.
Skip the quiz and take the gentlest road in. You are in charge here, and you are always on time.
Hold on to question 13. Your choice there is the compass. The rooms show your position. Question 13 shows your direction.
No. You really, truly do not.
Plenty of women explore the ground floor for the rest of their lives and have a wonderful time. Many readers are curious, so I wrote the upstairs rooms. Those rooms are the least discussed.
The Terrace and the Sky Room are an invitation. Read about them for fun, try one Dare, or close the door for good.
Think of it as a house with an attic. Some people love going up. Some people wave at the attic and stay perfectly happy below.
Here is a small piece of seduction craft. It is free, and it is a solo act.
Walk into a room today, any room, and see it for the first time. The light on the wall, the way the chair sits, the colors, the sounds, the warmth. Take thirty seconds to notice, with the curiosity of a new tenant.
That quiet, attentive, slightly amused way of looking is the secret behind everything in this book. Pleasure rewards attention. Look at your own body like a lovely new room, and you are halfway to the Living Room.
It is oddly flattering to be looked at that way, even by yourself. Try it.
At a gathering of friends, someone brought up the Pleasure Map. They all took it on their phones, in silence. Everyone wore the face of a person filling out a very personal insurance form.
Dana considered herself “pretty experienced.” Her Yeses ran strong through question 6. Then, to her surprise, they picked up again at question 9.
Then she had a realization. Her best moments had always been on the dance floor and in her cycling class. She had never thought of them as belonging to the house.
“I was a Bedroom woman,” she said, “and look, a terrace!”
Three of her friends confessed to the very same thing. The book club skipped the book that month. They discussed everything else.
Try it with a trusted friend. Compare your red dots over a glass of something. You may find a lot in common. You may also find very different lives in the same house.
This is the easiest Dare in the book, and the most useful. It takes about five minutes.
Take the Pleasure Map above. Then find a quiet moment and write down two things, just for you.
First, your room right now. Write its name, and one sentence about its feel. “The Living Room. I can feel it building, but I do not know how to keep it going.”
Second, one thing you want. Pick it from question 13, or write your own.
“I want to understand my body better.” “I want to feel stronger.” “I want to laugh in bed more.” Anything is allowed.
Then tuck the note away for a few weeks, in a spot easy to find. You will want to see the distance you have wandered.
You may notice: relief, a little curiosity, a flicker of surprise at your own words, or nothing at all. All of those are right answers.
SKIP IF: Any of the questions bring up distress. Put the book down and come back at any time. A gentler road is always there for you.
Log: your room and the one thing you want.
Garment: a bikini bottom, a snug one, the tie-at-the-hip kind. Position: standing with the corner of a sturdy table or desk pressed against you, hands flat on the surface.
Imagine a very patient lover. This lover learns your map by watching your face. You are the guide, and you get to say “there.”
Stand with your feet wide. Lean your hips forward and let the table corner press against you through the bikini. Move slowly.
Higher. Lower. A little to the left. A little to the right.
One spot makes you gasp. You have found a star. Drop the pin.
Now lean in, and rock. Slow and firm, the corner presses your button through the stretchy fabric. Feel the bikini grow damp. Let your head tip back and your lips part.
The ache climbs. Press harder. Rock faster. You cannot help it now.
Hold right at the edge for three breaths. Then let go and grind through the wave. Whisper “there” at the peak. Hold the table, and let your knees shake.
Rest your forehead on your hands and breathe. The pin stays in your spot.
Out and about: seated, press your thigh bone into the seat. Shift a quarter inch to land the pressure on your star. Hold, breathe, release. Perfectly invisible.
The Private Wing has a printable Pleasure Map. Fill it in and fold it into your wallet. A phone version is there too. It also offers a short spoken tour of the house, for evenings of being walked around instead of read to.