Sexual arousal during intercourse

When I had sex for the first time, I was disappointed because I had hoped that sex would be spontaneously arousing enough for me to orgasm. I didn’t have any clear idea about what I would do during sex except perhaps to respond affectionately to my lover’s love-making.
It’s amazing when you think of it. I was eighteen years old and a virgin so my vagina was as tight as it was ever likely to be. Yet I couldn’t feel a thing from thrusting, not even when my partner’s penis initially penetrated me. I was waiting for something to happen and suddenly it was all over.
Even subsequent times I was none the wiser. Naturally, we experimented with oral sex as well as different positions and techniques for sexual intercourse but nothing worked. Sex was so far from providing sexual arousal that it was hard to imagine what would make a difference.
Although I knew how to orgasm from masturbation, this was of little use to me. Masturbation was a solitary experience relying on being highly focused on sexual fantasies. Sex with a partner was completely different. For one, the environment was incompatible with the use of fantasies.
Erotic literature had given me absolute faith that foreplay and vaginal intercourse would provide guaranteed spontaneous sexual arousal and orgasm. So I just lay there, like a lemon, waiting to be transported to the heights of sexual pleasure assuming no need to contribute in any way.
Despite searching for answers for over ten years, so far no one has been able to explain them at all. When I have told them that my boyfriend remarked, that other virgins had made the same comment, the most usual reaction is silence. I am told that if I read so-and-so I would realise that my experience cannot be. They imply that no one else has the same experience.
Therapists conclude that since other women say nothing they must be happy with sex. There is little acknowledgement of just how embarrassed most people are about discussing their sexual experiences. I can vouch for the fact that even when a person is relatively relaxed about sex (as I have been) the humiliation of the implied sexual inadequacy is a very effective silencer.
So women learn to accept their sexual experiences for what they are. They make the best of it for the sake of their partner. Sex becomes an activity to be ‘gotten over with’. Sexual arousal is implied or faked depending on pressure from the man.
As a more experienced woman I now know that a woman plays along with men’s sexual fantasies, in part, to minimise her own investment of effort in an activity that is not designed to provide women with an equal sexual pleasure.
After all, it’s human nature… Why spend half an hour when you only need to spend a couple of minutes? Even prostitutes know the value of time (and, of course, money). It is much more efficient for a woman to play along with a man’s fantasies of arousing a woman so that he orgasms quickly.
In the end, men are directly looking for sexual pleasure (orgasm in particular) but women are, more often, willing to settle for affection and the emotional aspects of sexual relationships.