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You and your man are in the throes of passion: He’s calling out your name, quickening his thrusts, breathing fast and loud. You know he’s ready, but he knows you’re not. He tries harder, but his impatience just distracts you from your lustful pursuits—and another pleasure peak bites the dust.

“The story of my sex life,” says Julia, 29, a graphic artist. That is, before it underwent a revolution after her close girlfriend—who could have seismic orgasms from a whisper in the ear—spilled her sexual secrets. “I couldn’t believe what I was hearing,” recounts Julia. “But after putting her tips into action, I started climaxing just from fantasizing about my guy.” Inspired, Cosmo set out to find a group of these very practiced peakers—women who can orgasm at the drop of a dime—and ferret out their secrets of quick-and-easy coming. Here, their moan-and-groan mantras.

1. “I always expect an earth-moving orgasm.”
Orgasmatronic women don’t subscribe to the sit-back-and-cross-your-fingers formula for achieving sexual nirvana. Instead, they’re confident they’ll have to be removed from the rafters every time they go for a roll in the hay.

“Hell, yes, I’m going to climax when I have sex,” asserts Michelle, a 27-year-old website designer. “Why shouldn’t I? For me, it’s not a matter of whether I’ll have an orgasm, it’s a matter of how. Otherwise, it’s a little like ordering fillet mignon in a restaurant and thinking, well, if I actually get the steak, that’s great. But if all that arrives is a salad, well, better luck next time. So if something’s just not working for me sexually, I actively take another approach—and if necessary, another—until I find my own passions solution.”

After all, men just assume they’re going to climax, so why can’t we? “I call it the gender orgasm gap,” explains Barbara Keesling, Ph.D., author of Super Sexual Orgasm (HarperCollins, 1997). “Men get physical knowing they’ll get off—and that faith makes it happen. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. If women would adopt the same never-settle-for-anything-less expectations as men, I swear, they’d be having a lot more climaxes.”

This raising of sexual sights worked for Josie. “I used to convince myself I was satisfied with just feeling good, even if I didn’t peak,” explains the 29-year-old accountant. “But after talking intimately to some sexually satisfied girlfriends, I started to realize I deserve the same Yahoo! grand finale that he does. Now I go into it assuming I will have an orgasm. And you know what? It works. It really works. I’m having them—a lot.”

2. “I clear my mental plate.”
To have blockbuster climaxes routinely, it’s crucial to enlist your most powerful sex organ: your mind. “Our brains are wired such that we see the world much more holistically than men do,” says Gina Ogden, Ph.D., a sex therapist and author of Women Who Love Sex (Pocket Books, 1995). “Any small distraction registers on our psychological screens—which is good for some things but can wreak havoc on our sex lives.” The orgasm-savvy solution: Clear your slate of nagging worries so you can minimize distractions and focus strictly on pleasure.

That’s what worked for Jennifer, 29, a teacher. “If during sex, I happen to look over and spy a piece of dirty laundry on the floor, or I can’t shake the nagging goad of an unreturned phone call, it’s about as desire-dampening as a cold shower,” she complains. “So as soon as I get home from work, I spend half an hour clearing my mental plate of all everyday irritations: I return phone calls, pay bills, do dishes, whatever. Then the rest of the evening is strictly mine. This way, I can entirely tune in to the sexual experience—my fiancé’s touch, his smell, his voice, the way each individual part of my body feels—without becoming sidetracked.”

Micah, a 27-year-old writer, agrees that clearing her mind of little niggling concerns is key to being highly climactic. “First, I double-check that I’m doubly protected so I’m not distracted by fears of becoming pregnant. Then, when I’m having sex, I visualize (very explicitly) exactly what’s going on—my boyfriend touching my breast, my leg wrapped around his, the sweat beading down his back. If I let the here-and-now sexual act take the spotlight, reaping mind-reeling results is quite easy.”

3. “I play out all the passionate possibilities.”
Imagine trying to do the salsa without swinging  your hips or attempting to daintily eat a cheeseburger deluxe (tomato, lettuce, pickles, onions, oozing mayo, and mustard) with a knife and fork. Impossible, right? And frankly, kind of fun-sapping. Well, that’s what going for orgasm gold is like if you don’t let loose a little.

“Getting over sexual taboos has drastically changed my sex life,” marvels Margaret, a 28-year-old painter. “I used to be freaked out by the idea of watching porn. I attached some sort of ‘dirty’ stigma to it. But then my boyfriend convinced me to give it a try just once, and you know what? Bingo! Not only did I have amazing orgasms, but I realized I was still a good person, that watching porn didn’t turn me into a sleazebag. Now I try it all—you never know what’ll rock your sensual world.”

“I’ll try anything once,” agrees Brenda, a 25-year-old broker. “If it doesn’t do it for me sexually, I don’t try it again. End of story. But if it does, I’ve just opened the door to many more orgasmic possibilities. To take the pressure off, my boyfriend and I have a deal. If what looked like a brilliant sex stunt when Mickey Rourke did it turns into something more suitable for America’s Funniest Home Videos when we do it, we vowed never to laugh at each other—with each other is fine but never at each other.”

4. “I stick with my one and only.”
Think the same ol’ is bound to be boring? Sexually successful women insist you can reap enormous erotic payoffs by sticking with one main man. “Ever since my boyfriend and I started living together, I’ve been having orgasms 90 percent of the time, compared to my casual dating average of about 50 percent,” says a very satisfied Mega, a 26-year-old interior designer. “Our super sex secret? Through experience, we now totally know each others’ major moan zones and are relaxed enough to continue to discover brand-new ones.”

The monogamy advantage also gave Diana’s sex life a definite turn for the better. “It used to take me forever to come,” concedes the 27-year-old music producer. “That is, until my then-boyfriend of three years noticed that my vulva is tilted towards the right. He mastered my quirky curve and succeeded in making me come fast and furiously every time.”

5. “When I find something that works for me, I stick with it.”
You know the old saying you never forget how to ride a bike? That’s because although your brain might forget, your muscles retain a physical memory. And riding your own pleasure peaks is no different. “What you feel as orgasm is the rhythmic contraction of several pelvic muscles,” explains Keesling. “So if a certain position has rocketed your arousal level and triggered a sensational orgasm once, just getting back into that same position can set your body up for another over-the-top O.”

“For the longest time, I could only have an orgasm through oral or manual stimulation—never intercourse,” says Shelly, a 29-year-old film editor. “I had basically resigned myself to that fact. Then, while my boyfriend and I were having sex one afternoon in our living-room couch, we accidentally rolled off and landed with me sitting very upright—at a 90 degree angle—on top of him. Riding him that way, I went wild. Now, we have a groove down. If I’m having trouble tooting my horn, we just maneuver ourselves into that position and it works every time—it’s truly a guaranteed comer.”

Since everyone’s different, to discover your climax clincher, you’ll have to engage in some experimenting (oh, darn). For some women, it means finding he perfect penetration depth. For others, it’s a matter of positioning the clitoris a certain way. But once you hit the position that makes you hit the high note, you’ll be able to use it—and use it, and use it. “Think of it as that basic black dress that always does the trick no matter what,” says Ogden.

6. “I’m not picky. I take orgasms any which way.”
Highly climactic women are equal-opportunity orgasm fans. “Discriminating against a certain kind of orgasm is like discriminating against money,” insists Gwen, a 28-year-old singer and a super-orgasm success story. “I mean, a million dollars is a million dollars whether it’s in check form, gold bars, or cold, hard cash. Who cares which way it comes, just as long as it comes?”

And who says you even have to have sex to sing hallelujah? Not Megan. “I’ve discovered that I get a little extra pleasure perk every time I do push-ups. In fact, believe it or not, I’ve actually had full-on, cigarette-worthy orgasms doing floor work in funk class. Maybe it’s because I’m all sweaty and worked up and my endorphins are going or because I’m clenching my muscles a certain way. Who knows? Who cares? Needless to say, my upper body definition has become quite impressive.”

“Sometimes, I’ll make myself come just by thinking about sex,” adds Jessica, 26, a nurse and skilled self-titillating technician. “If I’m really in a relaxed state and I get caught up in an erotic fantasy, I’ll just go with it. It has a lot of benefits besides the obvious immediate one. I’ve found that doing this makes it so much easier to come during sex with my man. I guess practice really does make perfect.”

“There’s a whole spectrum of orgasms,” says Ogden. “And one type—whether it’s through intercourse, oral sex, manual stimulation, whatever—isn’t more valuable than another. Have as many different kinds as you possibly can. For goodness sake, it’s not like you’re going to run out.”

7. “I don’t freak over peaking.”
Here’s a secret: Sex doesn’t cure cancer. It also doesn’t ensure world peace or bring down superpowers (er, scrap that one). The point is, getting it right every time isn’t that important. “It’s like what my mother used to say about streetcars,” says Keesling. “If you miss one, there’s another right around the corner.”

“Sex is supposed to be fun,” insists Gaile, 30, an extremely adroit orgasmer. “Getting all worked up and stressed-out about it is like panicking over eating chocolate fudge cake. If I start to break a sweat about whether or not I’ll break sexual records, I just throw up my hands and say, Oh, what the hell. Going with the flow is usually all it takes to make you peak so high, they have to peel you off the ceiling.”