For those of you who don't know, let me explain what the male orgasm is like. It starts with an irritable sensation in our testicles and the end of our penis. W.H. Auden memorably called this “the intolerable neural itch”. Try to analyse the “itch” and it soon becomes apparent that it consists of little more than a large body of semen hollering to get out and go swimming as fast as possible. The mechanism by which this cargo of gunge will be released is as crudely sensitive as it is simple. It is so eager to go that, often, especially when we are young and eager, it will happen before we have even got our trousers off. But whether our sperm makes its exit in that undignified manner, or as a result of well done sex, or badly done sex, or, indeed, in the course of a good solo session, the sensation is identical. There is a slight, sweet/sour twitch from the prostate gland; a rather pleasant muscular gurgle from the testicles, followed within nanoseconds by a reasonably satisfying liquid rush the length of the old John Thomas; then, a further fraction of a second later, a moderately agreeable liquid awareness around the tip. And that, other than a few moments in a lifetime when there may be an extra fusillade within the same orgasm (typically, when we have avoided ejaculation for a lengthy period), is it. There follows a brief spell when we feel content and sleepy, and our prostate (if we are aware of its existence, which most of us aren’t, until it starts to go wrong in our forties) aches in quite a nice way.

Whatsoever therefore is consequent to a time of Warre, where every man is Enemy to every man; the same is consequent to the time, wherein men live without other security, than what their own strength, and their own invention shall furnish them withall. In such condition, there is no place for Industry; because the fruit thereof is uncertain; and consequently no Culture of the Earth; no Navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by Sea; no commodious Building; no Instruments of moving, and removing such things as require much force; no Knowledge of the face of the Earth; no account of Time; no Arts; no Letters; no Society; and which is worst of all, continuall feare, and danger of violent death; And the life of man, solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and short.

The entire mystery of pleasure in a woman’s body lies in the intensity of the pulsation just before the orgasm. Sometimes it is slow, one-two-three, three palpitations which then project a fiery and icy liqueur through the body. If the palpitation is feeble, muted, the pleasure is like a gentler wave. The pocket seed of ecstasy bursts with more or less energy, when it is richest it touches every portion of the body, vibrating through every nerve and cell. If the palpitation is intense, the rhythm and beat of it is slower and the pleasure more lasting. Electric flesh-arrows, a second wave of pleasure falls over the first, a third which touches every nerve end, and now the third like an electric current traversing the body. A rainbow of color strikes the eyelids. A foam of music falls over the ears. It is the gong of the orgasm. There are times when a woman feels her body but lightly played on. Others when it reaches such a climax it seems it can never surpass. So many climaxes. Some caused by tenderness, some by desire, some by a word or an image seen during the day. There are times when the day itself demads a climax, days of which do not end in a climax, when the body is asleep or dreaming other dreams. There are days when the climax is not pleasure but pain, jealousy, terror, anxiety. And there are days when the climax takes place in creation, a white climax. Revolution is another climax. Sainthood another.