My mother is a scientist, and though I think she meant well, her repeated assurances to me when I was a child that masturbation was healthy and nothing to be ashamed of seemed to have a reverse effect on me, where I never developed a childhood or adolescent masturbation practice. I don’t know why this is—it’s possible that I associated masturbation with being alone, or lonely, and that association was  associated with my parents’ divorce when I was five.

I can’t remember exactly when I had my first bona fide orgasm, but it was definitely during sex—around age 17, and in the throes of first love. It was undoubtedly a clitoral orgasm, one that resulted from the repeated friction of our pubic mounds. I found I could come relatively easily this way, in girl-on-top or missionary position, even two or three times in one session. I happily had orgasms in this fashion for the next several years.

When I started dating Johnny at age 23, I already knew he was on a sexual vision quest, and we quested together for seven years. Johnny is notoriously upfront about his prolific masturbation, his fantasies and so on. It was he who suggested I get some sex toys and start masturbating, so that I might explore my full genitalia and pleasure potential. So, that’s how I came to give myself an orgasm for the first time at age 24— which led eventually to my being able to have powerful, shuddering, eyeballs-rolling-into-the-skull, female ejaculating, g-spot-centered orgasms, one after the other after the other.

But I’m getting a little ahead of myself. Like, ten years ahead of myself. Because this is what I said recently to a whip-smart, sex-positive young woman of 21 who asked me how she could have g-spot orgasms: “Fuck yourself with a vibrating dildo and Hitachi Magic Wand on the clit for ten years, and maybe eventually you’ll have one.” To me, sex is kind of like a martial art, and you don’t become Mr Miyagi overnight. Maybe one can meditate their way to an orgasm, but not this gal. For me it took a certain amount of discipline and dedication, a decade of doing the do with self and others. But dang it, those were fun times with a pretty good payout! It’s not like I was training for the Olympics. It wasn’t even what I was doing with most of my time—I had a job or was in grad school, friends, hobbies, illnesses, vacations, etc.

Like many things, the path to a different feeling orgasm was gradual, and then sudden. I believe a few anatomical realities have played their part. For one, my g-spot seems to be quite deep. In fact, I found out the last time I went to the gynecologist that I have a deep pussy, period. She busted out the “extra long” speculum on me! So this means two 100% absolutely true things:

1) Most of my lovers hadn’t, and can’t, reach my g-spot with their penises

2) I AM A DEEP PERSON IN SOOOOOO MANY WAYS

But check this out: the more I ‘bated over the years (my preferred method involves a vibrator on the clit and a vibing dildo in the chacha—so pretty plugged-in I do admit), the more the epicenter of the ‘gasms migrated from the clitoris to this “interior area” that seems to exist—whaddya know—just inches inside the anterior wall of my vagina. When I was single, starting around age 31 (I’m 34 now), the more I concentrated on pleasuring this “spot”—which for me can require fairly intense ramming of the dildo, a contrast to the much softer, less direct way I would stimulate my clitoris—the more powerful and numerous the orgasms seemed to be. At times during these wank sessions I’d feel some liquid being released down there that I suspected could be ejaculate, but I wasn’t sure. Then, one night after reading a bunch of bad and good articles about squirting, I realized that the very worst that could happen at this stage of my vagina quest was I would pee my own bed like a toddler. I already was risking carpal tunnel. So I laid down some towels, got to work, got worked up and after having a long, powerful cum radiating like concentric pond circles from the interior spot through the whole of my entire being, I pulled out my dildo, took a breath and let go. And, I ejaculated! Not crazy power-hose streams like you see in porn, but a proud, honorary gush. It made a decent sized wet spot on the towel that smelled subtle and not like urine—sort of like seawater?

I now gush almost every time I orgasm with myself—the amount of fluid seems to depend on how hydrated and/or turned on I am. Also, I’m probably imagining this part—but I perceive with my solipsistic vagina vision quest goggles an ever-so-slight transition that occurs right after the moment I decide to give in to the hallmark “I have to pee sensation” that precedes both the need to urinate and ejaculate. I imagine a vascular railyard switch somewhere up there which causes the release of liquid to have a softer flow, as opposed to the more controlled stream of my urine. I wonder, do men feel a railyard switch between urine and ejaculate in a similar way? Do any ladies that squirt feel the railyard switch? And after I’ve nutted, I am completely exhausted, literally drained in a way that is different from my orgasms of yore. All I want to do is roll over and saw logs like some male chauvie pig.

At this stage of my vagina vision quest, I haven’t had a g-spot orgasm with a partner nearly as powerful as I can give myself, and the few scant times I’ve ejaculated with guys was technically given by my trusty dildo, and not a penis—though no one complained about this technicality in the slightest. Maybe I won’t ever have the same kind of orgasm with a guy’s penis that I do with myself. But that’s okay. Because when it comes to me, I may see my OWN sexual pleasure as a vagina vision quest, but I see sex with someone else as a different kind of vision quest: a feeling of body differences, tactile exploration, chemistry experiments, a body-mind-soul love quest, ya dig? Orgasms are a nice byproduct to that (ideally) holistic experience. Not to knock the orgasms I have from PIV— I would describe them as a mad decent blend of clit and vag, made infinitely more pleasurable by seeing the bright smile on a bed buddy’s face.

This is one thing I wish the xoJane readership, which I believe is mostly in its 20s, to remember: Life changes. People change. Orgasms change. And of course ideas change, become adapted, rejected and resurrected. I think men like Freud, Kinsey and Hefner made important contributions to human sexuality, and I also think it is important that women have and continue to reject, redefine and reclaim male-centered notions of sexuality. The oft-cited 75% figure of women who don’t have an orgasm from vaginal intercourse is mandate enough to revisit the whole enchilada of male-female relations. In fact, I have to admit I take a (perverse?) glee in the implication given (mainly by men) that if 75% of women can’t even be pleasured by penises, that 75% of women have no use for men. If only that were really true! Because 75% of women deciding they don’t need men at all, for anything, is a revolution more powerful than any old nut, any old day.

More of Jessica Trueblood Riddle’s writing can be found on her blog Pride and Provenance