The 4-Hour Body: The 15-Minute Female Orgasm

Yes, this is a chapter about female orgasms in a fitness book. Two chapters, actually. Chapters 19 and 20 are where Ferriss applies his usual method - find experts, test everything, report what works - to a topic most fitness authors would never touch. He does it with a straight face and detailed notes. Let’s do the same.

How It Started

Ferriss is at a Thai restaurant in San Francisco with his friend Tallulah Sulis, a specialist in female ejaculation. Between bites of broccoli, she drops a line that stops him mid-fork:

“For almost all women, the most sensitive part of the clit will be the upper-left-hand quadrant from their perspective, around one o’clock from the man’s perspective.”

She tells him to look up a woman named Nicole Daedone. He writes the name on a scrap of paper.

The next night, by complete coincidence, he’s having dinner with a 25-year-old yoga instructor who casually admits she has never experienced an orgasm. She says, “It’s fine. I’ve realized that sex just isn’t that important.” Ferriss nearly falls off his chair. He makes a drunken promise to fix the problem. Not that night, not necessarily through him. But somehow.

Then he does what he always does. He goes looking for experts.

The Stats Are Grim

Researcher Shere Hite found that 70% of U.S. women couldn’t orgasm from intercourse alone. Alfred Kinsey’s data suggested up to 50% couldn’t orgasm at all. This is not a small problem. It’s half the population.

Expert Number One: Nina Hartley

Ferriss’s first stop is Nina Hartley. Registered nurse. Magna cum laude from San Francisco State. Also starred in over 650 adult films. Lexington Steele, three-time AVN Male Performer of the Year, publicly said his greatest sexual experience was with Nina.

Their two-hour phone call produced one huge insight.

“No man can give you an orgasm. He can only help you do it yourself.”

Nina’s point is this: a woman has to be comfortable with her own body first. If she doesn’t masturbate, if she’s never explored what works for her, no amount of technique from a partner will fix that. She compared it to showing up at a race without training. You have to come to the starting line first.

This hit home. Ferriss called Giselle (his test subject, a composite of several women). She had never masturbated. Raised Catholic, eldest daughter, conditioned to view pleasure as dangerous. He gave her the book “Sex for One” by Betty Dodson and a homework assignment: five minutes of self-exploration before bed each night.

The Positions: Two Simple Tweaks

Nina’s practical advice boiled down to two modifications that apply to most sexual positions:

1. Change the angle. Tilt the woman’s hips so the head of the penis makes more contact with the g-spot. A buckwheat hull pillow under her hips does the trick. The g-spot is about quarter-sized, one to two inches inside, on the upper wall. Find it with a come-hither motion of the index finger.

2. Change the pressure. Shift the man’s weight so his pelvic bone presses directly against the clitoris. In missionary, this means the man straightens his legs, shifts weight forward, and uses small rocking motions instead of long strokes. The friction point changes from penis-on-vaginal-wall to pelvic-bone-on-clitoris. Result: man lasts longer, woman gets direct clitoral stimulation. Win-win.

Tallulah’s top recommendation was the same: targeted pelvic grinding in small circles or slow side-to-side movements. Never lose contact with the clitoris.

Nina’s rule for all intercourse: “When in doubt, you supply the pressure and she provides the movement.”

The OneTaste Method: The 15-Minute Practice

This is where things get really specific. Ferriss tracked down Nicole Daedone, founder of OneTaste, an organization that grew out of Lafayette Morehouse - a commune founded in 1968 dedicated to “responsible hedonism” (they painted everything purple so visitors would know they’d entered a different reality).

The OneTaste method works for two reasons: it’s goalless, and it separates orgasm from sex. No kissing, no foreplay, no buildup to anything. Just 15 minutes of focused touch on one tiny point.

Here’s the protocol:

Step 1: Set expectations. Tell your partner this is an exercise with no goal. “I’m going to touch you for 15 minutes. You don’t need to do anything. There is nowhere to get to, nothing to make happen.” Think of it like meditation. One stroke, one stroke.

Step 2: Position. Woman lies on her back, legs in butterfly position. Man sits to her side on pillows, one leg across her torso (supported by pillows so there’s no weight on her).

Step 3: Find the spot. The upper-left quadrant of the clitoris from the woman’s perspective, about 1 o’clock from the man’s view. Look for a small indentation between the hood and the clitoris. Retract the hood gently, anchor with the thumb.

Step 4: Stroke. Use the lightest touch possible. How light? “Two sheets of paper worth of pressure.” That’s it. Short strokes, about 1/16 of an inch of movement. Constant speed like a metronome for two to three minute periods. You can change speed between periods.

Step 5: End with grounding. After 15 minutes, press down firmly on the pubic bone with overlapping hands, pressing upward toward her head. Let her dictate the pressure. Most women want it as strong as possible. This creates a clear ending and avoids the “did I orgasm?” anxiety loop.

The Beginner Mistakes

Ferriss lists these from his own training and practice:

• Too much pressure. He thought he was being light the first time. He was using at least 3x too much. Think: tickling a sleeping friend’s nose enough to make them scratch, but not enough to wake up.
• Being goal-oriented. The whole thing works because there’s no goal. If she asks for penetration mid-session, don’t do it. Finish the 15 minutes first. She may beg in the moment but she’ll thank you later.
• Asking bad questions. “Does it feel good?” guarantees lying. Instead ask directional questions: “Lighter or stronger?” “More left or right?” “Higher or lower?”
• Talking too much. Some women talk to distract themselves and prevent the orgasm from happening. This is an exercise in overcoming that. A blindfold or eye mask helps reduce both self-consciousness and idle chatter.

Giselle’s Outcome

The yoga instructor from the beginning? After a few weeks of her nightly homework, she started talking to friends about sex. Turned out she was the only one in her circle who didn’t masturbate. Once the taboo broke, everything changed.

She started viewing sexual exploration as practice, the same way she approached yoga. “It was really tempting to come home and say ‘I’m tired’ and skip it. I had to view it as practice. Practice is something you do even when you don’t want to.”

She took up salsa dancing. She became comfortable in her own skin. What started as an orgasm experiment turned into a much bigger shift in how she related to her own body.

What I Think About This

This is one of the strangest pairs of chapters in any fitness book ever written. But honestly? The core message is solid. Most sex education is vague or nonexistent. Men assume they know what they’re doing. Women feel pressured to perform rather than feel. Nobody talks about the actual mechanics in plain language.

Ferriss treats the topic the same way he treats cold exposure or kettlebell swings. Find the people who are best at it, extract the specific technique, test it, report what works. You can argue about whether a fitness book is the right place for this. But 50% of women not reaching orgasm is a real problem, and most people don’t have an expert friend named Tallulah to casually drop knowledge over Thai food.

The key takeaway is simple. Light touch, one specific spot, no goals, 15 minutes, and honest communication. That’s the whole thing.

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This is part of my 4-Hour Body retelling series. New posts every Saturday.