Penetrating Questions | Sexercises you can do everywhere you go

Jina Ashline Columnist

I want to enhance my sexual experience and pleasure for both my partner and myself, but I don’t know how. I don’t want to use toys or strange positions—is there anything simple I can do?

—Sexplorer

Dear Sexplorer,

Have you ever heard of Kegel (pronounced Kay-gull) exercises? They are called by other names as well, including PC exercises, pelvic floor exercises, pelvic toners and PC trainers, and can strengthen the muscles of your pelvic floor, the pubococcygeus (PC) muscles. These muscles support your uterus, bladder and bowels. They just might be what you are looking for, because they can enhance sexual experience whether you are pleasuring yourself or are having sex with a partner.

Kegel exercises are named for Dr. Arnold Kegel, who “discovered” the muscles and developed a method of exercising them that consists of contracting and relaxing them. He created the exercises to help women strengthen their bladder control or prepare for childbirth, but women soon realized that the exercises also increased orgasmic intensity and sexual pleasure. Many people associate Kegels with women, but they can help men too!

Pelvic exercises have many health benefits because they stimulate the blood flow to the pelvic area in addition to increasing the control of individual muscles. Not only can they increase sexual gratification and bladder control in both men and women, they can also help treat and prevent vaginal and uterine prolapse in women, a condition in which an organ falls or slips out of its normal position. For men, the exercises can be good for treating prostate pain and swelling resulting from an enlarged or inflamed prostate.

What we are mainly interested in, however, is how these muscles can improve sexual experience for both women and men. The pelvic floor muscles play a very important role in orgasms, and exercising them regularly will extend the length of sex and individual stamina, in addition to intensifiying orgasms. Generally, people find that the longer they are able to delay an orgasm, the stronger and more intensely pleasurable the experience is. For some women, strong PC muscles can lead to multiple orgasms, heightened sensations and a tighter grip on fingers, penises or toys during penetrative sex.

For some men, having well developed PC muscles means a stronger, longer lasting erection, as well as more powerful ejaculations. With these exercises, men can increase control over the penis, and it can even allow some men to have an erection strong enough to hold up a towel.

Because these muscles are internal, you can privately exercise them anywhere once you know how. Learning how to contract and relax the muscles may take some practice. Begin by correctly identifying and isolating your PC muscles. You can find them by trying to stop the flow of urine while you are going to the bathroom—the muscles you use when you are “holding it.” This is a good method for initially locating the muscles, but don’t make a habit of starting and stopping your urine stream because there is a risk of weakening the muscles if you regularly do Kegels with a full bladder.

Additionally, be sure to empty your bladder completely before doing Kegel exercises because incompletely emptying the bladder beforehand increases your risk of a urinary tract infection. For women, another method for locating the muscles is to insert a finger inside your vagina and try to squeeze the surrounding muscles. Men can insert a finger into their rectum to try contracting the PC muscles to feel the squeezing around the finger.

Once you’ve identified your pelvic floor muscles and emptied your bladder, relax and then tense your pelvic floor muscles. You should be able to feel your vagina or rectum tighten and your pelvic floor move upward. Then relax your muscles and feel your pelvic floor move down to the starting position. Squeezing the muscles repeatedly in this way is the basis for the exercise. Squeeze and hold for five seconds, then release and hold for five.

When your muscles become stronger and you have more experience, the movement will be more pronounced. Be careful not to flex other muscles, like your thigh, back or abdominal muscles, at the same time, because the most benefit will be gained from using only your PC muscles while exercising. Be sure to relax and breathe with the exercise, inhale when you contract and exhale when you release.

Breathing is crucial to the experience, so coordinate your breath and movement.

There are many different techniques that you can try once you get the basics down. Trying different things will help target different muscles so that you can be sure to strengthen them all as a whole. You can hold the contraction longer, contract fast or slow, hard or soft. Count quickly to 10, contracting and relaxing your PC muscles on each count. Similarly, try pulsing your muscles to the beat of music.

Once you’ve mastered the basic exercises, you will begin to notice that the muscles in the pelvic region are not one big muscle, but several groups of muscles that you can isolate to enhance your exercises. The longer you practice, the better able you will be to identify and control the individual muscles, which translates into more sexual sensations that both you and your partner will enjoy.

A well known exercise is to visualize an elevator. Try slowly and gradually contracting and releasing your PC muscles one at a time, like an elevator traveling up several floors. The first floor is relaxed, and at each of the subsequent floors your muscles contract a little more until you reach maximum contraction. Hold the top floor contraction, and then slowly release each floor in reverse, like an elevator traveling back down. Then repeat. Start with three floors and work your way up to as many floors as you can isolate with a squeeze. You can find more ideas for exercises in books and on the Internet.

If you exercise every day, you will experience a significant difference within weeks . Exercise while watching TV, sitting in class, talking on the phone, driving, surfing the Internet—any time! Make it part of a regular practice so you don’t even have to think about doing them, and make them part of a lifelong practice for continued benefits. The more often you do them, the easier they will be. When you feel confident in your ability, incorporate your exercise into sex to enhance pleasure for you and your partner. Try stimulating your partner by squeezing your PC muscles instead of moving your body. This works well with all kinds of sex, whether with a partner or alone, fingering, vaginal, oral or anal sex. It will allow you to feel pleasure, and increase your partner’s pleasure.

There is another simple tool for more pleasure that is often overlooked: communicating with your partner. Use your new skill as a conversation starter. It is unlikely your partner is a mind reader; the only way they will know what you want is if you tell them. Keep the lines of communication open and the PC muscles pumping!

—Jiná Ashline ’08 is a religion major with a women’s studies correlate. She is also president of C.H.O.I.C.E. Each week she will answer a question about sex and sexuality. Send your questions to jiashline@vassar.edu or drop a note in Box 2172..