Laurie Handlers, well known author and Tantra teacher, interviews Welcomed Consensus researchers Sheri and Rebecca on her talk radio show Sex and Happiness. They discuss and share in great detail about how they conceived of capturing an up-close and personal look into Rebecca’s private masturbation practice based on Deliberate Orgasm and why such a practice is necessary for today’s women.
Laurie: Hi everybody. This is Laurie Handlers and you’re listening to Sex and Happiness. This is a show about sex and happiness and of course I’m thrilled to be here once again. Today my show is about really my favorite topic, orgasm. Whoohoo! Orgasm is the thing that I feel runs the world. And I don’t know if all of you agree with me or not but some of you are loyal listeners so you must be somehow in alignment with that because you listen to the show week after week. I’ve said many times on this show that I think people should have orgasm as often as they brush their teeth so that would be a lot of orgasms. You know who you are if you’re having them and you sure know who you are if you’re not.
So today we’re going to focus on the female orgasm and I have two wonderful guests with me and they’re part of a group. The group is The Welcomed Consensus and The Welcomed Consensus are pioneering researchers and educators in sensuality, communication and female orgasm. They’re renowned for teaching Deliberate Orgasm, or what is known as DOing. Deliberate Orgasm is based on the new feminine model of orgasm for both women and men. And it is centered on how to best produce female orgasm and focuses on how to fully experience it. The Welcomed Consensus’ research emphasizes the effects it has on a person’s choices, their sex life and their well-being.
Of my two guests today, my first guest is Sheri Testerman. Sheri is a sensual researcher and a sex educator with The Welcomed Consensus. She is one of the founding members and she’s spent the last 21 years teaching men and women about orgasm, friendship and how to live rich and gratifying lives. Welcome to the show, Sheri.
Sheri: Thank you, Laurie.
Laurie: Yes, it’s great to have you here and I’m also going to introduce Rebecca. Rebecca is a magna cum laud graduate of San Francisco State University. She’s been a student and researcher of sensuality with The Welcomed Consensus. And by the way I’m saying Well-comed. W-E-L-C-O-M-E-D, Welcomed Consensus. And she’s been with them since 1999. And we’re going to be talking with Rebecca today about a DVD she’s starring in and all kinds of other things. Welcome to the show, Rebecca.
Rebecca: Thank you.
Laurie: Great to have you. So as far as Welcomed Consensus goes an orgasm focusing on the female orgasm, can you tell me a little bit about that? Like how did The Welcomed Consensus get started and how did you start focusing on the female orgasm because it seems a little lopsided probably to people hearing about this for the first time.
Sheri: Well, we started The Welcomed Consensus in 1992. But prior to that we had been living together, was a group of friends, living together. We started living together in San Francisco in 1989. We had been taking sensuality courses so thus began our journey in researching and discovering sensuality, sexuality and what that meant to us. And through that, we had much emphasis on friendship. Friendship between men and women, women and women, and men and men.
As we began exploring our sensuality we started DOing, Deliberate Orgasm. DOing a woman, would be where a man is stimulating a woman’s clitoris and creating a high level orgasm in her body. And through DOing it requires communication, you know talking before the experience, talking during and talking after. And so through all of this communication, which none of us had any experience before in our lives prior. We were having fun sex lives before but this took it to a higher level, a whole new level. For myself I mean I discovered telling the truth to my partner in a way I had never done before. And so we were discovering more things, new things and it just led to us eventually teaching. And now it’s 21 years later. We’ve been teaching this information, it’s been expanding and growing.
Laurie: So, a few things that you say in there are very noteworthy. One is, I immediately felt the book, The Harrad Experiment, which was written in the 60’s or 70’s and it was a really popular book about people getting to Harvard and finding their roommates are boys and girls instead of just two boys in a room or two girls in a room. They have this whole social experiment also while they’re going to Harrad University, which is code for Harvard. Were you all in school together is that how you, did you say that already…were you all at SF State or something?
Sheri: No we were different walks of life. Prior to teaching, I was an esthetician. I had my own skin care business in Union Square. And we all had our professions. Eventually we quit all of our jobs and only taught within The Welcomed Consensus.
Laurie: How many people are you talking about here, how many were the founding members?
Sheri: There were four and then we had extended community from there. But the teachers, RJ and Wendy and Kimberly and myself and then at one point the Budanskys, Vera and Steve Budansky, joined us. Since then we’ve had other members join us, Rachael Slater, Terry Goffinet was a member of The Welcomed Consensus for a while.
Laurie: Great, so you’re expanding and sort of amorphous in that sometimes you have your own regular founding members and then sometimes you’ll have others join you. In the 21 years that you’ve been together, how many people could you estimate that you’ve taught this concept of Deliberate Orgasm or DOing?
Sheri: Oh I’d say hundreds and I could say thousands within viewers of our instructional videos. We have 13 videos in our library, a series on Deliberate Orgasm and a series on female masturbation.
Laurie: Okay that’s great, it’s great to know. Now something else that you said, I’m going to ask you more about that series and those videos shortly but before I do this some other things that you mentioned and what you were saying about telling the truth to your partner. That set all the bells and whistles in my body off. So telling the truth to your partner, first of all, was it your partner, partner as in your beloved, your lover, your significant other or was it your partner in the moment whoever that happened to be who was DOing you?
Sheri: That’s a good question and it would be all of that. But when it started, it was my partner, my lover and he and I would have these conversations with each other and they were conversations like I’d never had before. I mean I was telling him things I had never told anyone before. And he was telling me things. And I would come away from those conversations feeling like I had just had sex and it blew my mind. I thought, Wow I could have conversations with my partner and it feels like sex. And so that was mind expanding. Then with DOing, the way DOing is, it is by agreement two people having their attention on one person’s body to create the optimum amount of sensation. So within the DOing my partner stimulated my clitoris and he’s looking at me, he’s looking at my face, he’s looking at my eyes, he’s looking at my genitals, he’s describing the way my pussy looks and Wow, how cool is that! And so then, here is more opportunity for telling each other the truth. And then we would talk afterwards too, and tell each other what we experienced and makes for quite a gratifying relationship.
Laurie: That’s wonderful to hear. So it’s really again based on whether we want to call it non-violent communication, communication skills communication, assertive communication or radical honesty. So many people have called these communication techniques different things but it’s all the same. It’s really based on telling the truth. Part of it is, yeah I’m giving you this sensation but while I am giving you this sensation and you’re receiving this sensation and you’re giving me back sensation from your sensation, I’m going to report to you about it and I’m going to say nothing but the truth and that’s actually what we’re dealing with, a sacred space if you will, of telling the truth.
Sheri: Right, right. And it’s been thrilling to be known. You know, to be known as a woman and then it morphed into being known as a human being. And then knowing my partner as a man and then I would know him as a human being. And to be known, I think that if everyone could have that experience, it’s gratifying to the soul.
Laurie: I see what you’re saying about being known on the inside and out.
Sheri: Yes.
Laurie: Now is it a prejudice against men though, if you’re only DOing, Deliberate Orgasm-ing, a woman, how do men feel about this?
Sheri: That’s a good question and there’s two parts to answer that question. Well there is DOing a man…all of the principles that are in DOing a woman can be transferred easily into DOing a man and they are. So a man can experience an orgasm that is bigger and beyond anything he’s ever experienced before. And the thing with a man DOing a woman is that he gets the ability to produce an orgasm in his woman’s body any time and every time. And without doubt he knows he’s gratifying her. The effects I have seen on men when they are able to do that they blossom as men. They’re winners, they’re winning and they’re succeeding. And it’s undeniable. So within this information it just comes with it that men walk away winning beyond anything they have ever experienced before.
Laurie: And when you say that I’m not going to assume that anyone listening knows what you’re talking about but I sure do. Men love to get things right and win.
Sheri: Exactly, exactly, right.
Laurie: They need to it’s in their wiring, they need to feel like they are always in mystery and worrying about whether they are DOing it right.
Sheri: Exactly. And they’re producers and to produce pleasure for their woman any time and every time. It’s a beautiful thing. So really it enriches the dynamic, the man/woman dynamic. I mean this could be taken into same sex relationships but right now we’re speaking about men and women. And so yes, it enriches the man/woman dynamic immensely.
Laurie: Listen I know that it can and I want everyone listening to get that this can be taken into any dynamic. It doesn’t matter who your partner is. You could be a woman on woman relationship, you could be a man on man relationship and you could be DOing this. Or you could be poly or you could be any configuration of the above to be DOing this practice.
Sheri: That’s right.
Laurie: It’s something anyone can do at any time for you and with you. I actually have the practice, I learned it somewhere else so I’ll mention that in a second what your connections are here but I have some partners that I practice this with that are not my beloved or my person. As a matter of fact, often the partner that I do this DO with is not connected to me but to someone else but has the permission to do this with me. It’s really a meditation that we do together.
Sheri: Right, it’s a friendly thing to do. DOing is a friendly thing to do. I mean how fun to take care of your friend’s body and put pleasure in it.
Laurie: Yes it’s great, it’s really great. Sheri, thanks. Here’s one last question I have for you, I don’t know if it’s the last one but, in this segment which is, I know of More University and the famous Vic Barranco and certainly I know of One Taste and Nicole Daedone. I know that Nicole claims to have gotten her material for orgasmic meditation from Vic Barranco. And now I come to find out that also she’s spent time with The Welcomed Consensus. So is there any distinction here? Can we distinguish anything about you and these two groups because there are two other groups that do this kind of practice? This Deliberate Orgasm, or two people meditating coming together while stroking a woman’s clitoris.
Sheri: Right, right. Yes. Well, More University is who we got our inspiration from. We took, as we were all first living together, we took courses from More University pretty much every…
Laurie: Ok, so that was your training?
Sheri: That was our training. We took pretty much all of their courses and we were a big part of their community for a long time. We never lived with them but we engaged with them. They are wonderful, remarkable people. Thank god for them and their research. So then we took the information and what we learned and created our own through our experiences and through our research. And then how fun is it that students of ours, Nicole Daedone, Robert Kandell and Ken Blackman, all of One Taste they all trained with us. Nicole, she took pretty much all of our courses, as did Robert, and they lived with us for a couple of years. They took our highest level course, the Confirmation course, where you learn and you get trained in orgasm, how to produce a superior orgasm and how to experience a superior orgasm.
Laurie: You have a video or something that’s like a one hour orgasm?
Sheri: We don’t have a video but we do teach a course that’s called Observation of Intense Coming where we demonstrate to students a one hour orgasm through clitoral stimulation.
Laurie: Amazing. Wow. Well we’re going to take a short break here. I’m a little out of breath just hearing that and I imagine some of our listeners are too so this is a good place to break. I was just speaking with Sheri who is one of the founders of The Welcomed Consensus and now I am going to be speaking with Rebecca and asking her some questions about this latest instructional video that The Welcomed Consensus just put out called A Guide to your Orgasm. So when we come back that’s exactly what we will be talking about. Please stay tuned, this is Laurie Handlers and you’re listening to Sex and Happiness. We’ll be right back.
Laurie: Well we’re back with Sex and Happiness, and I am Laurie handlers, your host, and I am talking today with two members of The Welcomed Consensus. One of them, Sheri Testerman, has been a member of The Welcomed Consensus, a founding member for 21 years and she’s just been speaking to us about orgasm, specifically female orgasm but also how men’s orgasm can be brought about with the same technique. And she’s been talking to us about how it makes sense.
The things she said in the last segment that was so telling besides telling the truth which I loved of course I jumped right on that. But the other thing she talked about at the very end was allowing friends to give pleasure in your body. What a concept. I really just got all breathy about that in the end of the last segment because I feel that is so needed and necessary. So many people are love and touch and orgasm starved and the only best friend they have is their plastic vibrator. That’s a great tool, don’t get me wrong and that’s not a live being that cares about us and is putting pleasure in our body. So I just feel phenomenal about that last statement.
Well now I want to ask some questions to Rebecca. Now Rebecca, I had a chance to see you in a short trailer about this new video called A Guide to Your Orgasm. I was really impressed with you, your openness, your own physical sensuality and your covering of the topic of self-pleasure or masturbation. First I want to just ask you how you came to make the DVD. How did you become the star of it? Did they say we want to make a DVD and you said I want to, I want to. I mean how did you get to be the one?
Rebecca: Well it actually started that my life was really fun and I was having a great time with these viewpoints that I was living from. I started thinking like, wow, you know these ideas that are new ideas to me that I started using in my life I thought if everybody had this, boy the world would be such a different place. People would be so much happier because I was so much happier. And I thought, gee, what can I do that would let people know some of these viewpoints and some of these ideas that are making my life so much better and my orgasm so much better and my relationships so much better? And that’s when I thought about DOing this video. Right after I started thinking about it Sheri came to me and said, Hey, you know I’ve been thinking about you DOing a video.
Laurie: Really?
Rebecca: I said, Yeah, I can understand why…I feel the same way, this feels right. Let’s do it. And it was a long process from there, of talking about it and thinking about it and what we wanted to say as a group because it’s from The Welcomed Consensus but from myself and my own experience of these viewpoints.
Laurie: Well, it’s very personal.
Rebecca: Yes, it is personal. It’s my personal journey of sensuality but in that video I really demonstrate how I masturbate. I demonstrate extended orgasm, Deliberate Orgasm, using this technique.
Laurie: Yeah. So I mean it doesn’t get any more personal than that really? And Sheri came to you just at the time you were thinking of it? I mean Sheri, are you the video producer or is it because you just are in synch. All of a sudden Rebecca is having these thoughts and you’re so close with her that you just find out, oh, we’re on the same page. Why don’t we talk about making a video.
Sheri: Well The Welcomed Consensus had been talking about DOing a new female masturbation video and I do get involved in the video production part. I love it. So I did feel inspired, too.
Laurie: Yes it’s great, it’s great. Well Rebecca, I mean it’s so personal, it’s up close and personal, you show your body, you show your genitals and there’s nothing about it in any, I’m just saying this so anyone listening can know, there’s nothing about it that in any way borders on sensational in the sense of risqué, cheeky, cheesy, porno, nothing like that. It’s just straight-up, this is who I am. And you, whoever you are, can see me on the inside and outside, outside and inside. That’s a remarkable feat.
Rebecca: Yes, that’s what makes this video different than many of the things that are out there. My intention with this video is when I started thinking about it I really I started thinking about a particular person that I know, a woman that I know and I had her in my mind what I wanted to get across to her. And what was making my life better. So from there, I really did want to show what’s possible for a woman and for men too to watch it to see what is possible. Because what can be possible for one person can be possible for another.
Laurie: Yes. You certainly do demonstrate that. So, it’s courageous that you would do it. I feel to be so exposed. I mean, maybe it was a fantasy that you had, I don’t know. But also for me watching you, it felt so exposed, you felt so exposed and is it beyond your wildest dreams? I mean personally did you ever think when you growing up, Oh I’m going to make a video?
Rebecca: (Laughs) No, I did not think about that growing up. But yeah, what you said is true, it is very personal and I exposed myself but I felt like that was the only way that people would feel it is if I really was having the experience of DOing myself, of Deliberate Orgasm and putting this kind of orgasm in my body. And I really had a great orgasm that day. It was fun thinking about it, it was about a year that I thinking about it and deciding what it was that I wanted to express. And so I didn’t just jump into it lightly but, boy, it was a fun time. That day that I did it, it was like, Bam, right away, a lot of intense sensation in my body, a lot of intensity in that orgasm and it was a fun ride.
Laurie: Wow, so great to hear. It really, really is. It really does actually distinguish you and your effort and this DVD from a lot of things that people know of in the porno world, at least in the old porno world which is people getting drugged up and performing and nothing actually happening. No orgasm. And just performances. And you, real, raw, exposed, just there, with you and yourself and the camera. It’s so different and so distinct. So I give you a lot of kudos for DOing it and for considering it for so long. Considering it with grace for a year or so.
Rebecca: I’m glad that you said that because it is unique for that reason that I am feeling and that person who’s watching it can feel what I am feeling.
Laurie: Yeah. Now the Dalai Lama says that women, something about women bringing the world into peace and harmony. And I don’t know if the Dalai Lama thought of this when he was saying this but doesn’t this relate to happy and filled women. Like women who are happy with their bodies and happy in their orgasm. This would make a huge difference. Something that Sheri said earlier in the show about people just being happy. And then you being so happy in your life that you want to make an instructional video of it. Can you see this connection at all to what the Dalai Lama is talking about?
Rebecca: Absolutely. Yes, I can say for myself I am a much happier person because I feel so gratified in my sex life. And I feel so gratified in my friendships and my relationship through this kind of connecting. And it’s not just about self-pleasure which is what I demonstrate in this video but through that Deliberate Orgasm I have very deep connection with my partner and it is gratifying like Sheri was describing before. It is gratifying deeply in your soul to feel that kind of connection. They know you. They’re producing that kind of pleasure for you. It’s really a profound experience. It does make me feel happy to have this kind of profound experience in my life every day, whenever I want it.
That’s the thing that really changed for me when I found out about this was, Wow, I could have this any time. It’s not like out of happenstance. I know now what to do, how to do this every time reliably. And that’s what’s so much fun. It’s just available any time to anyone who wants to know these techniques and the ideas that produce that kind of orgasm in your life.
Laurie: Really, really great stuff. That was so good. Reliable, production of fabulous orgasm leading to wonderful oxytocin, serotonin, all of these great chemicals in the brain and happiness. Sex and happiness, a perfect fit for this how. (laughs)
Now let’s talk about how people can go about getting this video and others. There are other demonstrations on many videos. Like I know there’s another one called Orgasm at the First Touch and there’s probably a bunch of others. How can people get this list of information and go about ordering if they’re interested or connecting with your group if they’re interested?
Sheri: People can go to our website at welcomed.com. We have a whole video page that shows icons and picture of them and describes each video. Email us at Consensus (at) welcomed (dot) com and we are always open to people contacting us with any questions.
Laurie: So let me spell that. It’s www.welcomed (W-E-L-C-O-M-E-D).com I always want to put that “d” in because it’s almost silent when you say it.
Rebecca: And the phone number is 1 877 HOW-TODO.
Laurie: Oh okay it’s 877 HOW- TODO, Okay that’s great. And also you lead sensuality retreats in Northern California and you have online sex classes. Is that true too?
Sheri: Yes, we do.
Laurie: So, for those people listening…if you want to take your sex life to a new level and you’re not so into spirituality like the tantra stuff that we talk about on this show a lot or that kind of thing. But you just want to improve your sex life, increase your sensation and you want to do it just matter of fact…and you don’t want any, what I call whoo whoo in it (laughs) here’s another option for you. You can get lessons here and you can do it in the privacy of your own home.
Sheri: That’s right.
Laurie: Yeah, okay that’s great. Well, Sheri and Rebecca thank you so much for being my guests today. It was really nice to have you on and to have such straight-forward, frank communication about all of this and I have a really good feeling about you. I really hope that people will take you up on the invitation to check this out. Certainly this new instructional video which Rebecca stars in. It’s just really…it’s hot! (laughs) It’s really hot.
Sheri: Well, thank you, Laurie. It’s been fun to be here with you. Thank you so much.
Rebecca: Thank you.
Laurie: You’re welcome.