Do you only climax by tensing?

Turn-on Tonic: Dose Two

I get messaged about this at least once a week.

Ever since I broke down the old “clench-to-cum” situation on Instagram, people have been begging me for a permanent home for the information.

So here it is, my friends.

Now on Substack.

In Turn-On Tonic this week, I’m breaking down the phenomenon of:

“I can only orgasm by tensing. A LOT.”

Is this you too?

To show how common this is, I polled Instagram, and nearly half of you said, “this is literally me.”

And I wasn’t surprised.

Back in 2018 I did a collaboration with Reed and Florence from Come Curious. Baby Grace (who was 29 at the time) comfily sat on Reed’s bed, ecstatic to tell the internet world how to have an orgasm.

Years later, Florence and Reed sent me a voice note saying:

“Babe… people adore this video…

Watch it here.

…but so many are saying what you teach… is the complete OPPOSITE of how they’ve ever managed to orgasm.”

Oh! I thought.

And since then, more and more people have told me the exact same thing:

“I have to squeeze my entire body like a rigid board in order to cum.”

One of my earliest teachers in sacred sexuality used to demonstrate the difference between orgasming through tension versus openness.

For the tensing one, she’d:

– hold her breath

– puff her face into a red balloon about to explode

– furiously rub her clitoris

– squeeze her whole body into a tight, unmoving pressure cooker

– and then “POP” an orgasm out.

Afterwards she’d announce:

“With your breath held and your body tense, your orgasm can’t go anywhere. It’s like an unsatisfying sneeze in your genitals.”

Then she’d move into the core principles that she ultimately built her entire body of work on:

Sound. Breath. Movement.

When you let your body soften, your breath open, and your voice actually sound on every exhale, she demonstrated this in that very specific way (picture the thing those creepy man-bun wearing Bali men do before they approach you at ecstatic dance at a Yoga Barn), something profound shifts.

You start generating sexual energy in a completely new way. These become tools to cultivate energy, to direct it, expand it, and truly work with it.

And when you get skilled at this? Your orgasms stop being something trapped in your genitals. They start to ripple through your whole body. With practice and intention, you can cycle this energy through your entire system, and even through your lover’s, which becomes a next-level, trippy experience.

The first time I truly tasted the wild potential of this work was at a sexuality training where the air was thick with breath, bass, and bodies remembering themselves.

Somewhere between the sound, the surrender, and the sheer electric permission in the room, I slid into a 45-minute full-body orgasm that felt less like “having an orgasm” and more like being swallowed whole by pure life-force.

When I finally came back into my body, it hit me with the same intensity as the first time I ever took MDMA: that cracked-open, what the actual holy fuck just happened? moment where you realise with absolute certainty:

I will never be the same human again.

And this is available to you too.

Once you become deeply attuned to your subtle sensations (which is exactly what we do inside Wellspring and HEARTH) anything becomes possible.

In HEARTH, for example, there’s a module after months of becoming what I call a soma-naut (a person who can go on psychedelic journeys using nothing but the sensations in their body) where I guide a practice that blows people’s minds every single round.

Over Zoom (!!), I lead two practitioners-in-training into connecting their sexual energy currents together. One person becomes the penetrator of the heart, the other becomes the one being heart-penetrated, all through energetic direction, breath, sound, and the subtle body.

And every year, without fail, it is jaw-dropping to witness.

Two people, in different places, on different screens, end up making love energetically.

There’s giggling, tears, shaking, moaning, full-body activation, sometimes even orgasm…

from energy alone.

So I know I’ve gone on a tangent here. But like, if you come from tensing, and you feel like there’s always been something missing for you sexually. The world becomes your oyster when you say “okay, I’m willing to learn about how to start a new journey with my pleasure”.

So now back to the situation submitted for Turn-on Tonic.

“I can only orgasm by tensing. A LOT

If you want science AND a new way…

Cum with me.

DIAGNOSIS: the classic Clench-and-Come Reflex

Let’s break down orgasms with…

The Science

Physiological orgasms are a neuromuscular reflex.

When you tense your pelvic diaphragm, thighs, glutes, abs, hold your breath, you build pressure in the system.

This activates the sympathetic nervous system (fight/flight), which pushes you up to a peak.

So yes, clenching works. It’s like squeezing a tube of toothpaste until the orgasm pops out the top.

And now, let talk..

Habit Loops

Most of us learned to orgasm this way:

Rushed masturbation. Legs squeezed shut. Maybe hiding under the covers. Holding breath.

Over time, this creates a neural groove.

Your body learns: “aha! Orgasm = tension. Let’s do that again.”

So your system wires contraction as the only pathway.

And also it’s your…

Safety Mechanism

Tensing creates a sense of control.

Which feels safer than fully surrendering.

Because surrender is SO vulnerable.

It’s open. It asks you to feel. AND to trust.

And sometimes, it’s just easier to clench and get it over with than to soften into the unknown.

I’ve worked with clients who often find the idea of FULLY letting go into wild, total body, feeling like you have died and then been reborn 0’s, absolutely TERRIFYING!!!

I ran a poll on how everyone felt about deep, totally let go to God 0’s and here’s what they said:

Sounds like heaven — 55%
Terrified but curious — 34%
I need a safe word just thinking about it — 11%

What does all of this bring up in you? Tell me in comments (seriously I wanna know).

So now you know the above, here’s where it gets exciting:

When you stop bracing and start opening, your 0’s change.

Tension gives you a peak.

Relaxation gives you a waves of expansion (it’s when you start working with your sexual energy).

When you breathe, move, and let sensation spread…

Pleasure stops being a 10-second twitch, and becomes a whole-body event.

It can ripple through your belly, your heart, your spine… and literally to the stars (and beyond)

It becomes spacious, emotional, and deeply regulating

(over goal oriented or explosive)

so now here’s your TONIC.

If you only know how to 0 through tension, amazing.

Your body is brilliant. She found a way.

Annnd… there’s more for you, baby.

More pleasure pathways.

More sensation.

More out of this world sex.

Self-pleasure isn’t just a tool for getting off.

It’s an exploration. A journey into your body, your heart, your spirit.

It can literally rewire your whole erotic system, and open your entire life to MORE.

But for that to happen, you need to break outta the routine.

Ditch the clench-and-come reflex.

And learn to meet yourself in a completely new way.

EDUCATION

understanding your pleasure anatomy + erotic nervous system

SUBTLE CONNECTION

sensation journeys and working with energy

PRACTICE

meeting your body (over and over again) with breath, sound, and movement, without a goal. Just riding the waves.

Try it this way:

Touch your body like you’re saying hello for the first time.

Let pleasure be a slow rise, not a sprint.

No climax agenda. Just curiosity, connection, and presence.

feel called towards Wellspring or HEARTH (where we get stuck into the magic of everything I’ve just shared)?

You can join the waitlist…

Here for HEARTH: (where you become a practitioner)

Here for Wellspring: (where you embody this work for yourself)

Or, feeling an entire sexual shake up, right now?

Jump into Sex is Medicine. A FREE immersive experience where you will lift the veils of illusion placed on you by a society which degrades, subjugates and exploits your sexuality. And come into full, unapologetic connection to your birthright: An epic and soul-full relationship to sex, which grows you, heals you, and will enrich you as a woman… for the rest of your life.

Get Sex is Medicine now, for free, here.

Your body is brilliant. And she has so much more waiting for you.

Love,

Grace