Yes, Women Can Have Sleep Orgasms, Too

While teenage boys are likely not the target audience of 55-year-old menopause advocate Davina McCall’s podcast Making The Cut, this week’s discussion of different kinds of orgasms — in particular, sleep orgasms — might have perked up a few pubescent ears. McCall, who spent some of the episode reading a page from women’s health book The Happy Vagina, rattled off nearly a dozen different ways for women to orgasm, including while asleep.

Though practically any coming-of-age comedy since the invention of the Walkman would have you think differently, “wet dreams” are not just experienced by horny boychiks. They’re a regular occurrence for adults of all ages and genders, including McCall, who shared in this episode that she herself has had “several.”

The list of orgasm types ranged from the well-known clitoral, vaginal and G-spot, to the lesser-knowns, like the A-spot, U-spot, V-spot, cervical, nipple and, of course, the sleep-gasm. McCall, who hosts the show with her boyfriend Michael Douglas (don’t worry Catherine Zeta-Jones hive, it’s not that Michael Douglas), also described a “core-gasm,” or a climax that happens during ab exercises. Her boyfriend and co-host, who was shocked to find that women can experience more than one type of orgasm, could be heard throwing around lots of “crikeys” in the background like a sexually illiterate crocodile hunter.

What Exactly Is a Dry Orgasm?

This common phenomenon can feel a bit freaky, but it’s usually nothing to worry about.

“Who knew it was so complicated down there,” Douglas crowed, as McCall explained how to find the U-spot, often referred to as the female prostate (“directly above and to either side of the urethral opening”).

Because few studies on vaginal wet dreams have been done since roughly 1985, there isn’t much science about sleep orgasms in women. They may also be underreported because they don’t leave as obvious a calling-card as a giant semen stain on the sheets. What is known, though, is that a sleep orgasm, also known by the spine-tingling technical term “nocturnal emission,” isn’t necessarily always brought on by a sex dream. Genitals can become hypersensitive during REM sleep, when blood flow increases throughout the body. Depending upon your personal anatomy, an ejaculation can occur in that heightened state from something as benign as a brush of the duvet.

And while there’s sometimes an oddly competitive edge to how many different types of orgasms a person can achieve, the important thing is that women are learning more about their own capacities for pleasure every day. McCall, who recently published a book about menopause, recommended Mika Simmons’ The Happy Vagina as a companion piece to help people explore their bodies at any stage of life.

“Viva La Vulva,” McCall joked as she made her way down the orgasm list, “it’s Coldplay’s new album.”