The topic of female orgasms, or how to know when you’ve had one, is the kind of topic that keeps coming up, and up and up and oh, so close…

Faking it. (Speaking of faking it, notice the OJ)

Questions about female orgasm are so popular, the opposite of me in high school (how’s that for pretend holding on because yes, I’m actually over being unpopular back then), so I decided to hop on the bandwagon and answer this same question!

Question: How do I know if I’ve had an orgasm?

Answer: When you stop having to ask, you start knowing you have.

That’s how it worked for me. But since this is one of those FAQ’s on any S-E-X site, let me just say this, beyond the fact that your genitalia actually feel like they’re contracting, which is when you’ll be most certain as a woman, there are some tell tall signs that can tune you in. While not all of them work on all people, in his book Beyond Orgasm, Dr. Marty Klein lists six ways to tell that you’ve had an orgasm. I like his concise bullet points so much that I’m going to reprint them right here:

• increased heart rate, and breathing
• reddening of the skin, especially on the face and chest
• pelvic throbbing
• erection of the nipples and genitals
• heightened threshold of pain
• contractions of the muscles around the anus, vagina, prostate and elsewhere

Because one of my strong suits is over-sharing, when I’m asking the question in my own brain in my real life, because I! want! to! know!, I generally check on my lover’s nipples, look at his skin and glance at his digits (especially for curled toes). These three physical signs of arousal help me stay in tune with my partner’s level of excitement.

When it comes to my own orgasms, the ones I didn’t actually have until I was 21, but thought maybe I was having before that (because it still felt good and I didn’t honestly care), I knew when I knew.

That, and I learned with the aid of a vibrator, not unlike this one. To me orgasms are best defined as the sensations you experience right before a huge sneeze, or I always think of it feeling like a wave in the ocean, building up, and up, and up and then crashing down and then the water slowly trickles further out, on to the sand, again, and again, and again. Cliche’s for sure, but the best damn cliche’s I’ve got. Thing is, it’s never the same problem with men, damn semen and obvious hard-ons, but man, women are more complicated, and not just when it comes to orgasms.