What’s ‘Broadening’? And why is it 80% of us that like it have never talked about it with anyone, ever!?!

I consider myself knowledgeable about sex. But I’ve always been skeptical of ‘sex tip’ articles and even books on the topic. When there’s no scientific study as a source, I know not to trust it. And when it comes to sexual pleasure, there had never been actual studies about what feels good — so all the info online and in books has been anecdotal.

That’s what’s so intriguing about the OMGYES project — they partnered with Indiana University School of Medicine and Yale to ask tens of thousands of women about the specific techniques that are pleasurable for them. The biggest findings are presented on OMGYES.com with videos of regular women telling about each thing from their experience.

Here’s their intro video:

There are like 50 or more topic chapters — and one stood out for me, personally: Broadening.

I only feel comfortable writing this because I now know how normal it is: I’ve always been able to orgasm from laying on my stomach and rubbing really hard against the mattress. Now I have a word for it: ‘broadening.’ It’s been my go-to way to masturbate forever. And I have a vivid memory from when I was young, thinking I’d discovered some kind of magic power and showing my mom, who gave me this look of dread that made me feel ashamed in a way I’d never felt before.

So it was powerful to see a whole chapter of research findings dedicated to this. Not only did the research show my rubbing against the mattress is a normal thing (46% of women do this!) but my feeling of secrecy about it was normal, too (more than 80% of women who do this have never told anyone about it, ever!) Isn’t that mind-blowing?

So what is OMGYES?

It appealed to me for three reasons: The research, the tech, the results. First, I’m generally interested in academic quantitative research on human sexuality. And I also feel that female sexual pleasure is a woefully understudied topic. So I’m happy to support this research endeavor. Second, the teaching method involves videos, animations and how-tos. I’m curious to try all that out. Third, I’m not very good at masturbating. Or directing my lovers on how to touch me, other than to constantly say “lighter.” I find most of my own touches (and others’ touches too, tbh) kind of terrible!

Not knowing is frustrating and trying new things is frustrating. But I wish it weren’t so difficult for me and my partners to get me off with our hands and their mouths. I suspect that if I knew what was mostly likely to feel good and wasted less time on stimulation that doesn’t, playing around with my vagina would be more fun and less frustrating.

Thoughts on OMGYES

It’s got a very easy and intuitive checkout process.

The interface is modern and attractive. Although I would have preferred it be more clear where I am supposed to start.

Once you click on a video, there are helpful hints about how to use the page and what is what.

I’m not exactly completely unread about sexuality, so I didn’t expect to learn a ton. For example, I’d heard of the “edging” technique to create stronger orgasms. But I found I learned things that not only did I not know about women’s orgasms, but things I found totally unintuitive, such as the specific fact that edging led to longer, more intense orgasms for 65.5% of women studied. More generally, I had no ideally that there are three main edging techniques, and for most women just one of them does the trick.

The edging instructional video had the woman in the screenshot totally naked, touching her inner labia, and explaining what she’s doing. Which was jarring at first, to be honest. I’ve never seen a woman masturbating outside of porn (well, IRL a few times).

One thing that’s cool about the videos is the little things that you realize are normal. Like, I find that touching myself the way that I loved one time will do nothing for me the next, which is hella frustrating but also made me feel weird. But hearing Amber talk about sometimes having to find the sensitive spot on her vulva because it moves made me feel normal and like, “We’re in this together!”

The road test

So I took some of what I learned in the “teasing” module and tried it out IRL. That consisted of getting high and watching the Mindy Project, and then pausing when Dr. Jody Kimball-Kinney appeared on screen in a thin white tee. (Don’t judge me.) After teasing myself to orgasm, my lovely partner offered to help me try out some techniques.

It was awesome. It’s not so much that trying the technique is breaking new ground. It isn’t. It’s that I felt confident in directing him to use the technique. I was confident that it would work (20,000 women!) and confident that it was a normal thing to ask for. And, perhaps most importantly, confident to insist that it go on long enough to really work. According to OMGYES, teasing usually doesn’t work until you’ve done it a bunch of times. Truth be told, I wish there had been more teasing before the awesome sex we ended up having. And I felt confident enough to tell my partner that later that night.

This is kind of a breakthrough for me. I often get bored and anxious during the part of foreplay that’s focused on my pleasure, and end up cutting it early and switching to giving a blow job or something else I know my partner likes in order to keep things moving and keep my mind engaged. This is a mistake. It teaches my partners that I don’t want much head/touching/etc. when the truth is that I do want it. In fact I really need it. Just not like that. And it robs us of the opportunity to work together to find out what gets me out of my head and turned on.

Who it’s for

If you also find yourself bored and anxious during foreplay, this is a good investment. It’s really nice to hear other women say, in essence, “Immediate, rough, dry fingerbanging isn’t foreplay.” And, “Going straight for the most sensitive area of my body and pressing hard on it after 2 minutes of kissing not only does not arouse me but actually feels horrible.” And, “Do not think that you are good at sex if you can’t move your tongue and/or mouth in the exact same way for five minutes straight.”

I had a pretty good grip on what didn’t feel good before OMGYES. But I didn’t know what to insist on trying, and what to insist on continuing. Most partners, if they tease me, do it for about 30 seconds before trying to put some part of their body inside mine. That’s not enough, not only for me, but for most women, according to the research. Maybe it shouldn’t, but it really helps me demand more to have other women backing me up, saying that the fact that it’s not working is because you need to do it longer. Which is somewhat counterintuitive.

And I’d also say, based on my experience, that every single man who has sex with women should buy OMGYES. Like, now. Y’all are not teasing enough, not consistent enough, not any of these things enough. None of you are.

How much does it cost?

I got lucky and got OMGYES 33% off (it’s not a subscription thank god). They run sales from time to time. You can check their pricing here.