Is orgasmic meditation a form of sex?: practitioners of orgasmic meditation view the practice as significantly more similar to meditation than to sex or fondling

Background: Orgasmic Meditation (OM) is a structured, partnered meditative practice in which one person, who can be any gender, strokes the clitoris of their partner for 15 minutes. As such, it resembles a sexual activity. OM is taught as a practice that is distinct from sex, and we wondered whether people who engage in OM actually maintain that distinction themselves.

Methods: We conducted an online convenience sample survey including qualitative open-ended text questions and quantitative Likert-style questions that was distributed to email listservs for practitioners of OM. In the study, 414 participants completed the 30-item questionnaire including questions designed to differentiate the potentially related concepts of OM, seated meditation, fondling, and sex, as bases for comparison.

Results: Participants reported that they strongly agreed that OM is not fondling or sex, giving an average Likert-type rating of 4.55 and 4.65, respectively. Participants disagreed most strongly with the statements “OM is Sex,” and “OM is Fondling,” with average ratings of 1.42 and 1.48, respectively (strongly disagree). There was also high disagreement with the statement “OM is not mediation,” with a rating of 1.53.

Conclusion: The quantitative results of this mixed methods study show that OM practitioners view the practice as significantly more similar to meditation than to sex or fondling. These results were consistent, regardless of whether the question was asked in the positive or negative or whether OM was being compared to one behavior individually or to multiple behaviors at the same time. The distinction between OM and sex/fondling rapidly becomes more pronounced as practitioners complete more OMs. This suggests that the novelty of genital touching in meditation may diminish over time, as practitioners get used to the more alternative point of focus. The results of this study have implications for the practice and how it is approached and regulated.