Webinar hosted by Dragonfly Lee of PUREORGASMICLOVE

Dragonfly is an internationally renowned speaker on connection and pleasure, also known for her signature PleasurePlayshop™—an experiential journey into erotic learning and pleasure. As a slow sex expert, she invites you to deepen your understanding of the many aspect that are you. 

"I Didn't Know What I Didn't Know"

Dragonfly did not have her first orgasm until her mid-twenties, after many sex partners. Her summary of those years was simple and disarming: "I didn't know what I didn't know." That admission set the stage for everyone listening who has quietly wondered whether something was wrong with them.

Getting there was not a matter of finding the right partner or the right position. It required letting go, reprogramming old beliefs, consistent practice, and, perhaps most counterintuitively, deliberately non-orgasm-focused exploration. Taking the finish line off the table was part of what made arrival possible.

What changed for her was knowledge of her own body: what turns her on, how to access it reliably, and how to ask for and guide a partner toward it. Today she experiences multiple types of orgasms she once had no idea existed.

Rethinking Performance Anxiety

Performance anxiety came up early, and Dragonfly's clinical experience with it is striking. In all her time in practice, only once has performance anxiety turned out to have an actual physical cause. Instead, she frames it as "a functional response to a dysfunctional situation," meaning the body is often reacting sensibly to pressure, disconnection, or circumstances that were never conducive to pleasure in the first place.

An audience member pointed out that performance anxiety affects women too, and she agreed without hesitation. It is not gender-specific. Anyone can find themselves observing their own body instead of inhabiting it, and that shift alone can shut pleasure down.

Language, Shame, and Fake Benchmarks

Dragonfly pushed back firmly on the outdated label "frigid," preferring "pre-orgasmic" for someone who has not yet experienced orgasm. The difference is not cosmetic. One term closes a door and assigns blame, while the other acknowledges that a body simply has not gotten there yet.

She was equally critical of the habit of measuring ourselves against benchmarks pulled from grocery store magazines and general data, none of which account for your particular body, history, or nervous system. She offered a reality check: the belief that everyone else is having perfect, mind-blowing sex does not hold up.

The Pelvic Floor: What It Actually Does

For women, the pelvic floor is a web of muscles supporting the bladder, urethra, vagina, uterus, bowel and large intestine, rectum, and anus. It controls continence, meaning peeing, pooping, and passing gas, and it drives blood flow and vaginal contractions during sex and orgasm.

For men, the pelvic floor supports the bladder, urethra, prostate, bowel, rectum, and anus. It governs the same squeeze and relax continence control, and it is essential to both erection and ejaculation.

In other words, this group of muscles sits at the intersection of everyday function and sexual pleasure. Understanding it is not a niche interest. It is foundational.

When the Pelvic Floor Is Weak

Dragonfly listed the common causes of a weak pelvic floor: pregnancy, childbirth, hormonal changes at menopause, which she noted is "something we don't talk about," obesity, chronic constipation, heavy lifting, aging, and prostate cancer treatment. A weak floor is what explains those small, familiar moments like leaking a little urine when you sneeze.

The go-to technique is the kegel, found by locating the muscles you would use to cut off the flow of urine. She described several variations: clench and hold, flutter, and the "elevator" option, followed by release and repeat. The audience is led through a live guided pause, eyes closed, breath in, clench, squeeze, hold, release. Even something as small as "saying hi to that space," increases blood flow, and increased blood flow means increased arousal.

The Other Half Nobody Teaches

"We've been talking about kegels, kegels, kegels," Dragonfly said, without anyone teaching relaxation. Overworking a muscle without rest does not build strength. It creates a hypertonic, or overly tight, pelvic floor, and she has been seeing a lot of that lately.

Causes of a hypertonic pelvic floor include habitually holding in urine or stool, which prompted her plainspoken advice that if you have to go, go, as well as pelvic muscle injury. She also warned about unconscious tension: when people are stressed, anxious, or scared, they clench the pelvic floor without noticing, felt in the vulva, the penis, or the anus. The anus in particular holds a great deal of tension and deserves its own attention.

Strengthen and Release

When the host polled the audience about their relationship to their pelvic floor, asking whether they do regular exercises, have only heard of it, or are currently having problems, one participant answered, "mine is strong, no exercise needed." Dragonfly pushed back directly. Pelvic floor strength is not permanent. It changes with age, which means continued engagement matters whether or not things feel strong today.

Strengthening through kegels must always be matched with properly relaxing the pelvic floor, because engaging without releasing invites problems. Alongside kegels, and noting there are different ways to do them: the squat, which moves the pelvis and helps the pelvic floor let go.

Why This Groundwork Matters

Understanding body mechanics, along with the chemicals released during arousal, supports the ability to create stronger, longer, and different kinds of orgasms. The muscles are the instrument, and learning to both engage and release them expands what is possible.

Dragonfly does pelvic floor therapy in her practice, and she was clear about her preference: she would much rather have clients come to her to expand pleasure than to repair a hypertonic pelvic floor. She shared the story of a friend with anal prolapse who resolved it over a couple of years through pelvic floor work they did together, avoiding surgery altogether.

Original webinar was live-streamed on SDC.com on May 31st, 2024