Women Have to Learn About Their Sexual Arousal

Some women appear to be so sheltered from the world of adult eroticism that one wonders if they have ever experienced sexual urges of any kind. The fact is that even today some women never tune into eroticism and never gain an appreciation of their own sexual arousal because women's sexual arousal and orgasm is not automatic.

Nancy, a recently widowed woman in her seventies became acquainted with John, a man of the same age, during a stay in hospital. On the grounds of friendship, they met once for lunch and then Nancy invited him to her house. On admitting John to her home, he took the sexual initiative by giving her a tongue-in-mouth French kiss.

Nancy contained her revulsion at the uninvited physical intimacy until John left but resolved that she would never see him again. Nancy told me that even her husband of fifty years had never kissed her 'like that'. Men never seem to lose their enjoyment of physical intimacy with the opposite sex whereas women do not necessarily appreciate the physical side of sexual encounters at all.

"Sex is the price women pay for marriage. Marriage is the price men pay for sex." (p92 Why Women can't read Maps 1999)

Women should be encouraged to hope for sexual pleasure

On the other hand Nancy has already had her chance in life. As a teenager in the early 1940's, she was sheltered by her family and society from any knowledge of sexual pleasure. Young women were simply not equipped to know how to respond to their lover in bed. This was a sad loss for Nancy as well as for her husband. Sex and love are often confused for women and, even today, many people believe that knowledge of sexual pleasure is 'inappropriate' for respectable women.

Marriage is not just about family; it also involves a man and a woman being companions and hopefully lovers for life. Today there is no reason for sheltering young women from eroticism. Teenage girls should be told how couples can enjoy sex for life. Knowledge does not force a person to make certain choices - it gives them a choice.

Men today have alternatives to marriage as much as women. Not every woman is attracted to eroticism but it is no longer sufficient for a woman to simply 'put up with' sex. She needs to know how to enjoy a sexual relationship beyond the early years if she is to keep a family together. Equally we need to change attitudes so that men appreciate the effort that women make in sex.

Sex has existed for eons and yet it is often asserted that women's sexuality has changed over recent decades. Changing attitudes and providing information can only encourage women to make the most of their innate sexuality. Whatever the fashion, all women have essentially the same fundamental sexual responses and these are quite different to men's.

The sexuality that some young women display today is no different to the past except society then was not so admiring of women who behaved in a sexually provocative manner. Since young women often don't know how to have an orgasm it seems less likely that women who engage in casual sex are enjoying sexual pleasure.

In any event, it is worth questioning the value of a relationship for either side that starts by bartering sex for a meal or a couple of drinks. The film 'Doc Hollywood' makes the point well that young women should consider holding back a little and testing out whether a man is interested in them as a person or simply on getting into their knickers.

Long-term relationships are not only about sex but also about enjoying each other's company over many years.

By Jane Thomas author of http://www.WaysWomenOrgasm.org and http://www.Nosper.com

Some Women Do Explore Sexual Pleasure

Slowly attitudes to sexual pleasure are changing and more couples are approaching their sex life with a willingness to try activities other than vaginal intercourse.

This brings welcome variety for men as well as the opportunity for a couple to explore whether more explicit stimulation might increase the woman's arousal and even lead to orgasm. For example, many women who explore sexual pleasure with a partner find that oral sex is how they enjoy their best orgasms.

"There is no reason why physical intimacy with men should always consist of 'foreplay' followed by intercourse and male orgasm; and there is no reason why intercourse must be part of heterosexual sex." (p34 The Hite Reports 1993)

The pre-orgasmic woman (a woman who can only orgasm during masturbation alone) faces a unique dilemma because of the difficulty she may have in trying to reconcile a sexual relationship without orgasm and her own sexual pleasure.

Presumably, with oral sex becoming more accepted, couples are content when the woman can climax in this way. However, perhaps even for these women there is a similar problem if a couple still feels that ideally orgasms should result from intercourse.

One advantage of vaginal intercourse, when combined with a face-to-face position, is that it allows for the loving aspects of sexual relationships. Equally, for many people, penetration is the greatest turn-on because it symbolises the ultimate act of intimacy with another person. Another form of sex play, that is highly taboo especially for women, is anal sex.

If a woman is open-minded and has a sensitive lover then anal stimulation/penetration combined with clitoral stimulation is likely to lead to orgasm. As with vaginal fisting, a professional lubricant from a sex shop and plenty of time to take things slowly are critical. Try Em & Lo's book 'The Big Bang' on both of these.

Basically, if you are struggling with lack of sexual arousal during sex and genuinely want to share your own arousal with a partner then you will need to be prepared to explore sexual activities other than straight intercourse. This means making some special effort once in a while to spice up your sex life.

"Anal intercourse: This is something which nearly every couple tries once. A few stay with it, usually because the woman finds that it gives her more intense feelings than the normal route and it is pleasantly tight for the man." (p118 The Joy of Sex 1972)

By Jane Thomas author of http://WaysWomenOrgasm.org and http://Nosper.com

Some Women Never Tune Into Eroticism

Angela, a woman in her early twenties, was having relationship problems with her boyfriend of six months. She was upset that he enjoyed looking at other women. She got him to agree to stop buying pornographic magazines, which she found demeaning.

"Porn to men is not a big deal. They honestly can't see how watching a sexy film can be any sort of reflection on their love for their girlfriend. Most don't understand why she takes offence because, as far as they're concerned, every guy does it.

They're right. Research shows the infrequent porn user is your average guy - 90 per cent of them. He's not a deviant, he just likes looking at sexy pictures. It's got a lot to do with what turns each sex on.

Usually, men are turned on more by pictures and visual images, women are turned on more by words. Now, that's a massive generalisation, but true in a lot of cases." (p235 Hot Relationships 1999)

She believed that if he loved her, he would only want to look at her body. Angela was also disgusted by the idea that men can enjoy eroticism outside a loving relationship. I was surprised by her reaction because it has never occurred to me to place limits on my partner's enjoyment of eroticism. Equally, I cannot imagine limiting my own thoughts at his request. Angela, still very much in love, was confident that she experienced orgasm with her partner but told me that she did not use fantasy.

Emotional orgasms

Angela was sure that the arousal she gained, although driven through her emotional psychology, resulted in real female orgasms. Even the first time and every time afterwards, intercourse was orgasmic for her.

Angela thought that her sexual arousal stemmed from the idea that her partner found her sexually attractive. She said that she could not orgasm from the missionary position and that she needed to be 'on top'. Who knows? Some sources suggest that women who orgasm during intercourse have a more prominent clitoris or, perhaps, it is simply that their sexual fantasies (or expectations?) map more easily onto reality.

I asked Angela how she knew that she was not having 'emotional orgasms' (peaks of sexual arousal). Angela was confident of her interpretation of her experiences. Growing up reading Cosmopolitan magazine, she called herself a 'Cosmo Girl' who was well informed about female masturbation and orgasm. Of course, just because a woman has read about other women's experience of orgasm this does not necessarily mean that she knows how to achieve the same for herself.

Angela had disliked eroticism ever since puberty when her father, brother and their friends made her feel degraded by their lewd sexual remarks. It’s a shame that some women are so sensitive to men’s sexual remarks, which are more often than not intended as a compliment. The problem arises because many women associate eroticism with being considered ‘dirty’.

A young American woman, who had only twenty four hours in Rome, felt so threatened by the young men of Rome that she vowed to spend her whole trip in the women’s hostel. Admittedly, Italian men are the most voluble and persistent of any nation that I have been to! I have always accepted male heckling with a smile and interpreted any sexual innuendo as a compliment.

By Jane Thomas author of www.WaysWomenOrgasm.org and www.Nosper.com

Women often only discover orgasm by learning how to masturbate

Laura was educated and cultured but she also had a worldliness and the classy sex appeal that attracts the most ambitious men. In her early thirties, Laura told me that she had always been confident that she had orgasms during sex.

Then at the age of twenty-eight, a liberated friend told her how to use a vibrator. Her friend was so convinced that Laura should try the experience that she took her to a department store to buy the gadget. If only we all had friends like this!

Laura admitted that this piece of equipment sat in her bedroom drawer for some time before she was brave enough to give the thing a try. Eventually she did and appreciated for the first time in her life what orgasm was. Laura usually masturbated as a means of going to sleep as well as indulging in the occasional urge to enjoy orgasm.

Tracy Cox gives ten good reasons to masturbate including: "It releases tension and helps us sleep - a secret sleeping pill without any side-effects!" (p18 Hot Sex 1998)

Great sex life even without orgasm

Having told me that she had never had an orgasm with a man even now, Laura went on to describe some of her sexual encounters as 'totally amazing'. Laura did not see any contradiction because, for her, sex with a man was about personal chemistry. Laura got a great ego boost from the sexual power of being pursued by men.

In over ten years of sex with different partners, Laura had always assumed that she experienced orgasm during sex. It was only once she discovered masturbation that she found out what real female orgasms felt like. Despite the evidence of her own experience, Laura still believed her friends when they said that they had orgasms during sex.

Laura even believed her mother who said that she had never had a problem with orgasm. We now have more information and more opportunity to explore our sexuality but our expectations are correspondingly higher. Thanks to the pill, women today come to question their sexual experiences in a way that women who had children earlier in their lives probably had little time for.

It is easy for a woman to pleasure a man and the fantasy leads us to assume that it ought to work the other way around. When it doesn't, both partners can end up feeling inadequate. Laura admitted that she felt selfish in asking a man to spend longer than a few minutes on pleasuring her as she knew it would take far too long for him to be able to arouse her sufficiently.

"During 'sex' as our society defines it both people know what to expect and how to make it possible for the man to orgasm. The whole thing is prearranged, preagreed. But there are not really any patterns or prearranged times and places for a woman to orgasm - unless she can manage to do so during intercourse. So women are put in the position of asking for something 'special', some 'extra' stimulation..." (p61 The Hite Reports 1993)

Laura still hoped that one day she might discover how she could orgasm during sex. Despite Shere Hite's suggestion that nature never intended women to orgasm from intercourse, women today still have the strong impression that they should.

Jane Thomas: Author http://WaysWomenOrgasm.org and http://Nosper.com

Holding Men Responsible For Women's Sexual Arousal

Quite unfairly, we often blame men for the difficulties that women have with orgasm during sex. For example, it is suggested that by coming too soon men fail to provide enough stimulation through thrusting.

In fact, intercourse is unlikely to provide most women with enough clitoral stimulation regardless of how long the man continues thrusting.

"Closely linked with the traditional pressure on men to maintain long erection and thrusting during intercourse is the idea that it is a man's role to 'give' the woman an orgasm during intercourse. ...

In addition to the pressure created by this role, this idea also often puts the man in a no-win situation since the information he has been given - that thrusting during intercourse should bring a woman to orgasm - is faulty. This places him in a vulnerable position, leaving him to doubt his masculinity whenever female orgasm does not occur and also possibly pressuring the woman to fake orgasms." (p160 The Hite Reports 1993)

Sexual arousal depends on the mind more than the body

Sex advice today often plays on male insecurities by suggesting that a man can 'give his woman an orgasm' or even (for heaven's sake!) multiple orgasms. This is ludicrous. The fact is that most women use fantasy to reach orgasm and no man can control what is going on inside a woman's head.

A woman can arouse a man simply by revealing her body - this is just the way nature intended things to work and not down to her individual talents (pole & lap dancing aside!). A male lover does not have the same natural advantage because most women do not find the body of a sexual partner as arousing as men do.

Many women do not know how their own sexual arousal works so small wonder that men struggle to find techniques to turn their woman on!

In 'The Hite Reports', a male respondent points out: "It seems that women have only recently discovered the nature and depth of their own sexuality... Yet women are angry at men for not understanding their sexuality already... as if men should be experts at something about women that even women didn't know!" (p182 The Hite Reports 1993)

Touché! Perhaps, because men appear to enjoy sex so spontaneously, women assume they have some innate understanding of sex that we fundamentally lack. So we leave the initiative to the man hoping against all odds that something will happen as if by magic. Unfortunately, women's sexual arousal and orgasm is not automatic and so pleasuring a woman is not easy.

Older generations of women never hoped for orgasm from their relationships but equally a man never felt obliged to facilitate a woman's orgasm during sex. The sexual revolution has made men feel just as inadequate as women. The difficulty for modern couples is matching reality with our high expectations fueled by a much more powerful media.

By Jane Thomas author of www.WaysWomenOrgasm.org and www.Nosper.com

Why Foreplay Techniques Don't Always Work As We Think They Should

Foreplay has evolved as a means of compensating women for the lack of clitoral stimulation during intercourse. The concept behind foreplay techniques (including clitoral stimulation) is that a man should be able to arouse a woman sufficiently to enable him to continue stimulating her to orgasm through thrusting alone.

One problem with foreplay is that clitoral stimulation needs to continue to the point of orgasm. (Imagine leaving off penile stimulation just as a man heads for orgasm!)

More fundamentally though, foreplay techniques do not necessarily assist with women's arousal because sexual arousal depends more on a person's psychological state than on physical stimulation.

A man enjoys kissing and intimate touching, partly because of his resulting erection. His erection demonstrates his sexual appreciation for his partner. In other words, it is a compliment. If a man has difficulty achieving an erection, it is easy to arouse him by kissing his mouth, stroking his body or masturbating his penis (just for starters!).

The same pattern does not work for the majority of women for the following reasons:

• Women do not have the spontaneous sexual arousal men tend to have from the start.
• Women do not find the naked body of a sexual partner as arousing as men tend to.

As a result of these two points, a woman is not turned on enough in her mind to respond to physical stimulation in the same way that a man does. This means that it is quite normal for a woman to experience a lack of arousal during sex.

Women's sexual arousal is not automatic

Women may enjoy admiring a man's body in a tight pair of jeans (or even completely naked) but not usually so much that we orgasm spontaneously. So during masturbation, while men look at pictures of naked women, women tend to use highly explicit sexual fantasies. Since women do not find the body of a sexual partner arousing enough to orgasm, it's likely that they will need to use their fantasies during sex to achieve orgasm.

"The naked truth is that women are more likely to be attracted to a man when he has his clothes on." (p28 Bluffer's guide to Women 1998)

Women's sexual arousal and orgasm is not automatic. So most women do not tend to reach a state of sexual arousal that could lead quickly to orgasm from just looking at a man and contemplating sex. Worse than that - when we approach sex with a partner (or masturbation for that matter) we tend to be stone cold in arousal terms. In other words, women do not start a sex session just short of an orgasm.

"Women aren't automatically excited the way men are. But men seem to expect us to be turned on, and they're annoyed when it doesn't happen." (p10 Why Men don't get enough Sex and Women don't get enough Love 1994)

Men have an automatic response to the sex hormone testosterone (e.g. a younger man's early morning erection) as well as becoming aroused by seeing or touching an attractive woman. Women do not experience the same kind of spontaneous sexual arousal. Since they have fewer 'natural' aids for sexual arousal, women's sexual arousal relies on sexual fantasies even during sex with a partner.

By Jane Thomas author of www.WaysWomenOrgasm.org and www.Nosper.com

How to Orgasm (If You're a Woman!)

Shere Hite explained how women apply orgasm techniques in order to reach orgasm during intercourse. Women's sexual arousal and orgasm is not automatic and so women have to learn how to orgasm. Inevitably, such techniques take time to develop.

" ... the two reasons women don't orgasm during intercourse are:

(1) they are given false information, specifically they are told that the penis thrusting in the vagina will cause orgasm; and

(2) they are intimidated from exploring and touching their bodies... They do not control their own stimulation." (p53 The Hite Reports 1993)

Research indicates that masturbation is innate but sex itself is learned. We know that vaginal intercourse is reproductive and so we assume it also leads to sexual pleasure.

Unfortunately, female orgasm is not required for reproduction and so vaginal intercourse is not designed, either physically or psychologically, to provide a woman with orgasm. Luckily other sexual activities can be just as enjoyable as (if not more than) intercourse.

Intercourse naturally allows a man to control his own physical stimulation (of the penis) through thrusting. Even if the woman takes the initiative and 'rides' her man from on top, she is still stimulating his penis with her vagina. A couple needs to build into their sex life the same freedom for the woman to obtain the clitoral stimulation that she needs.

Clitoral stimulation is not everything

If a woman knows how to masturbate to orgasm, she may be able to obtain the additional clitoral stimulation she needs by applying her orgasm techniques to sex while her man penetrates her. Either her partner stimulates her clitoris or more usually she masturbates herself during intercourse using a rear-entry position e.g. in the spoon position (imagine spoons lying side by side in the drawer).

Of course, this kind of sensitive technique is difficult for a man to learn as he needs to rely on his partner's feedback. The likely areas, equivalent to the erogenous areas in a man, include the labia themselves (the length of the penis), either side of the labia (the testicles), the entrance to the vagina (base of the penis) and around the anus.

A man needs to learn how his partner reacts when stimulation is pleasurable. The signs of sexual arousal in a woman are subtler than for a man but include the degree and consistency of her vaginal fluids, the extent that the vaginal entrance and labia are swollen and the degree of clitoral erection.

"Forget the missionary position. Most men think that if they stick it in you you'll be screaming with orgasm, just as long as they keep at it enough" says Ruth, 30. "It's just not so. No matter how much you pump, nothing is going to happen, apart from her writing a mental shopping list for Tesco. Unless, of course the clitoris is involved. And that's physically impossible if you're lying on top." (Men's Health magazine Jan/Feb 1998)

Transferring orgasm techniques from masturbation to sex can be difficult for a woman because some sexual fantasies are more difficult to use during sex with a partner. Unfortunately not every woman is able to focus on fantasy during sex.

By Jane Thomas author of http://www.WaysWomenOrgasm.org and http://www.Nosper.com