Orgasm: the cure for hunger in the Western woman | Nicole Daedone | TEDxSF

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx

Nicole Daedone is a sought-after speaker, author, and educator focusing on the intersection between orgasm, intimacy, and life. She is the founder of OneTaste, a cutting-edge company bringing a new definition of orgasm to women. The practice at the heart of her work is called OM or Orgasmic Meditation. OM uniquely combines the tradition of extended orgasm with Nicole's own interest in Zen Buddhism, mystical Judaism and semantics. Helping to foster a new conversation about orgasm - one that's real, relevant, and intelligent - she has inspired thousands of students to make OM a part of their everyday lives.

Nicole graduated from San Francisco State University with a degree in semantics and gender communication. She went on to found the popular avant garde art gallery 111 Minna Gallery in SoMa before moving on to OneTaste. Nicole is the author of Slow Sex: The Art and Craft of the Female Orgasm (Grand Central/Hachette, May 2011) and has appeared on ABC's Nightline. Her work has been featured in the New York Times, the New York Post, the San Francisco Chronicle, and 7x7 Magazine, among others, and her writing has appeared in Tricycle magazine. In his #1 New York Times Bestseller The 4-Hour Body Timothy Ferriss calls the OM practice "required education for every man on the planet." For more about OneTaste and OM, visit http://onetaste.us. Nicole's blog appears at http://nicoledaedone.com.
Raised in Los Gatos, CA, Nicole now lives in San Francisco.

All right, OK.

(Laughter)

My subject is a little bit
more challenging to introduce.

I've been doing radio interviews lately

and noticing the interviewer will spend
the first 40% of the interview

preparing the listening audience
for me to come on.

They'll say things
like, "Ladies and gentlemen,

the author of 'Slow sex,'
the art and practice of..."

- hmm -

Nicole Daedone.

So I figured we're TED people.

We're fast, we're savvy, we're smart,

so I'm just going to break the ice first:

my topic is female orgasm.

(Applause)

Thank you.

(Applause)

So that said,

I want to thank the people of TEDx
for having me on this stage.

This has been a dream of mine
that I thought was absolutely impossible;

that we could have

a relevant, intelligent conversation
about female orgasm

was just a distant dream for me.

I just fell in love with this practice.

That's what happened for me.

I gave nearly 10,000 hours
to this practice.

That's a lot of hours.

(Laughter)

A lot!

But I learned some key things
in that time that I am bringing to you.

The first is that female orgasm is vital
for every single woman on the planet.

The second is:
is not so bad for the guys either.

(Laughter)

The third, and on
a much more serious note,

is that it roots
our fundamental capacity for connection.

It's for this reason that I believe

that at some point, you will hear

yoga, meditation, and orgasm.

And you won't hear it

yoga, meditation, and (whispering) orgasm.

In 2004, I founded "One Taste"
urban retreat centers with this in mind.

"One taste" comes from
the Buddhist expression,

"Just as the ocean has
one taste, the taste of salt,

so does the taste of liberation,
the taste of truth."

I felt like I had tasted a truth
that was so undeniable

I had to bring it to the world.

I was absolutely clear on this.

Mind you, not everyone was.

We had lectures, we had courses,
we had what every orgasm study needs;

we had a residence.

It was insane by pretty much
anyone's standards,

and we had the lack
of clientele to prove it.

My business partner has
journal entries that say things

like, "Two people showed up
to the business this week.

The first was the postman,
the second was a wrong address."

Crickets.

So I began to question whether or not

this brilliant, life-altering notion
that I had was actually right.

And I began to give up.

Until all of a sudden, in some odd storm,
the New York Times discovered us.

And when that happened,
people began to flood into our doors;

person after person after person.

Fundamentally, each person
was saying the same thing.

They were saying
some version of "I'm hungry.

There's this annoying sense of hunger
that I can't quite reach.

I don't know how to touch it."

So I was very clear,
and I would say to them,

"Oh! Orgasm."

And they would say, "What?"

And I would say, "Orgasm."

And they would say, "Huh?"

Because at the time, what happened

was they were hearing the toxic mimic
of what I was talking about;

because that was the only thing
that had ever been given to us.

They were hearing this exaggerated version

where you imagine sex toys and boas,

or, the other version, where you have
to call your genitals weird things,

and use different
spiritual names and stuff,

but nobody was actually just imagining
playing good, clean, everyday orgasm

as I was talking about it.

And it was for this reason

that people were coming to me
saying things

like, "I've been married
to my partner for 28 years,

and we haven't touched for 18."

Or women were coming to me
saying, "I just roll over at night,

and I hope he doesn't touch me
because I don't want to fake it again."

Or men were saying,

"I want to do everything to please her,

and I cannot figure it out."

Or, more commonly, woman after woman
was coming through my office,

and they were chanting what I call,
"The Western woman's mantra,"

"I work too hard, I eat too much,
I diet too much, I drink too much,

I shop too much, I give too much.

And still, there's this sense
of hunger that I can't touch."

So, when I first discovered this thing,

this thing that's called
orgasmic meditation, this practice,

I was fairly smart, I was fairly savvy,
it wasn't like I grew up in a convent,

I had a great sex life,
I had all the climax I could ever want;

and still, I had never
experienced anything like this.

It happened like this: I went to a party

(Laughter)

- orgasm is compelling enough
for me to unveil myself -

I went to this party, and I met this guy;
which sounds typical.

This wasn't a typical guy.

He said, "I'd like to introduce you ..."

- Oh! You could use
this line if you want! -

(Laughter)

"I'd like to introduce you
to this sexuality practice."

I said, "Huh?"

He said, "I'd like to introduce you
to this sexuality practice."

And then he said,

"OK, you are going to take off your pants,

and I am going to leave my clothes on.

And then, you're going to lie down,

and I am going to put all of my attention
on you for 15 minutes."

"OK."

"And then, at the end of it,
you're free to go."

(Laughter)

I am a good woman,
and I have the defenses of every woman.

I know how to say no, but somehow,
I found myself lying there,

with my legs butterflied-open.

So that you can know what the practice is,

so that you can go home
tonight and try it.

I'll describe what he did.

I was lying there,
my legs were butterflied-open,

and he did what you would
always expect in a sexual act;

he took a light and shown it down there.

And then, he began
to describe what he saw.

He said, "You're outer labia are coral.

I'm noticing that the your inner labia
have this red tone to them,

and they're swelling as I look at them."

And I couldn't hear anything after that
because the tears just started flooding;

something began to thone me.

I have never been looked at
or felt that kind of compassion

in that area before.

So then, he sat next to me,

and he put his right thumb
at the base of my introitus,

which is the area that you would enter
were you to have intercourse.

And he took his finger
and stuck it in lubrication.

And then he pulled his finger up,

and he put it on the upper left hand
quadrant of my clitoris.

The upper left hand quadrant
of my clitoris would be,

where I'm facing you, the one o'clock
position with my clitoris, a clock.

He stroked up down,

up down, up down, up down

no firmer than you would stroke
your eye lid, that tender tissue there.

So, it was great!

Because nothing happened.

Absolutely nothing.

I was where I always am or was
when I was in any kind of sexuality act.

I was in my head.

I was thinking about
whether or not I looked good,

I was thinking about whether or not
I was doing this thing right,

I was thinking whether or not
this guy was kind of creepy,

whether or not I was marry him;

I was thinking about whether or not
my stomach looked a little poochy,

and then, all of a sudden,

the traffic jam that was
in my mind broke open.

It was like I was on the open road,

and there was not a thought in sight,
and there was only pure feeling.

For the first time in my life
I felt like I had access to that hunger

that was underneath
all of my other hungers,

which is a fundamental hunger
to connect with another human being.

It was enough,
and in that moment, I thought,

"Oh, my God! This is
what it's supposed to be like."

Then I had a moment of thinking,

"I want to know
how to live here in this place."

And then I thought,
in my philanthropic way,

that I want everyone else
to know how to live here.

Then that window closed.

Then I sat about learning
how to live there,

and I began studying
in weird behind-the-scenes places,

and then I cobbled together this practice

that could in a repeatable way
get thousands of people

who have come through our doors
back to this place.

The amazing thing isn't just
that you can hit that place,

is that you can hit it
with another human being.

I don't like anything, I really, really
don't like anything woo woo

so I'm going to describe it in
the simplest way I can possibly think.

Both people are putting
their attention on the same point;

- it's a fairly intense point, mind you -

they are putting their attention
on this intense point,

and then, just like a master chess player
would get absorbed in a chess game,

or perhaps an Olympic athlete
would get absorbed in his practice,

or a breathing mediator
would get absorbed,

you get absorbed into that place.

The only difference is that you get
to be absorbed there with your partner,

you get to have this most profound
and deep experience

with another human being.

So, mind you, I've met
with some skepticism;

people have called
my life's practice diddling.

(Laughter)

They've called it mutual masturbation,

but the challenge
is that I can't get mad at them

because I too am a skeptic;

I was an academic,

I prided myself on my ability to say no,

I prided myself on my critical thinking.

There is no way you ever, ever, ever
could have convinced me to try this thing.

What happened was I tried it,
and that convinced me

so that's what I say to people
when they come into my office.

I say,"'Just try it.

Really, the worst thing you have to lose
is 15 minutes of your life.

The best thing you have to lose
is that sense of hopelessness

that you will ever be
reached deep inside."

I sat about this journey,

and I can tell you
that there was a moment

when I received a stroke
that could never be taken back.

It was a stroke where I knew
I had been returned to my birth right

of my capacity to perceive
and receive pleasure.

This is often a complete shock
to women when they come in,

when I say, "Just try orgasm."

Mind you, that's not that much of a shock
to the pharmaceutical companies;

they've been spending the past 10 years
creating the next female Viagra.

For the DSM-5, they've proposed

hypoactive sexual desire disorder.

I don't think that it is
hypoactive sexual desire disorder,

but I do think we have a pleasure
deficit disorder in this country,

and I don't think that is medical.

I think it's a cultural issue.

I do think though that there is a cure,

and that cure is orgasm,

but it's going to be a very different
definition of orgasm than we know.

It is not going to be
that fleeting moment of climax

that seems to take
the whole rest of the act hostage,

it's going to be a definition of orgasm
that actually works with the woman's body

so that rather than trying
to stuff a woman's body

into an ill-fitting definition,

we have the definition work
with what the woman's body does.

And the amazing thing is
that when you have this,

this whole notion of frigidity
or a woman being anorgasmic

flies out the window.

And what it's replaced with
is an entire lifetime journey

of discovering who you are
and how your particular orgasm works.

(Applause)

That said,

the Dalai Lama has said

that it will be a Western woman
who changes the world.

And mind you, I don't know
if you know about this,

but it's actually
a fairly controversial statement

because it presumes
that Western women are above other women

in terms of changing the world.

I actually have
a totally different issue with it:

I think that it will be
turned-on women around the world

who'll change the world,

it will be turned-on women
and those who dare to stroke us

who'll actually change the world

by feeding this desire
for connection that we all have.

Thank you.

(Applause)