Very few women can talk confidently about sexual arousal

When I could find no answers from talking to experts, I decided to embark on research of my own and talk to women I came across in everyday life.
I did this by writing down some of my experiences and conclusions and then asking women whether they would be willing to read what I had written. I made it clear that there was no obligation for my reviewers to comment.
Perhaps the first point to remark on is just how difficult it is to decide who one can ask to comment (or not) on one’s own personal experiences. I found that there were in fact very few women who I would be brave enough even to ask.
It is much more widely accepted that men are rarely offended by any sexual references. It is much less certain that a woman will not be offended. Even making an approach on such a taboo subject can easily come across as at least odd, if not perverted.
I only approached women who I thought might have a sense of humour about sex. So even if they were not interested they wouldn’t be mortally offended. Even having selected women in this way, the fact is that very few were prepared to comment.
Silence is difficult to interpret. Were they shocked, angry or embarrassed? I’ll never know.
“Many women find it very difficult to talk about sex with their male partners. More than a quarter of the women with whom I have discussed the subject say that they never talk to their partners about things they might do to improve lovemaking.” (p117 Woman’s Experience of Sex 1983)
Women’s experiences are implied as much as stated
Of those who did comment they probably fell into five groups.
(1) Those who were ’shocked’ by explicitly sexual behaviour. They implied that a woman’s sexual experiences should more properly revolve around her relationship with a partner. See sex stories: A sexual relationship and Female masturbation is relatively uncommon.
(2) Those who were confident that orgasm during sex just ‘happens’ the first time and every time. They drew comfort from popular beliefs about female sexuality and often implied that, surely, every woman should orgasm with a lover. See the sex stories: Bluffers, fakers and sex surveys and Some women never tune into eroticism.
(3) Those who were the sexually ‘jaded’. One woman in her late thirties, career and no children, refused to discuss her experiences. She said that all her friends agreed that women don’t get anything out of sex. Women accept sex because they want a relationship with a man (usually for reasons of companionship or family).
(4) Those who had the same experience as me and could only orgasm from masturbation alone. See sex stories Young women often don’t know how to orgasm and Sex advice for women is often misleading.
(5) Those who were confident about orgasm and were able to explain their experiences. These women were relatively relaxed about talking about orgasm. A couple of these explained orgasm with a partner either (A) by masturbation or (B) by using a position. They recognised the need for clitoral stimulation and also admitted to using fantasies during sex for arousal.
(A) Women who masturbate during intercourse: The two women I have spoken to who had this experience (see stories Applying orgasm techniques to sex and Reaching orgasm) learnt to combine masturbation and sex from very early days so perhaps their fantasies map more easily onto reality.
(B) Women who find a position for intercourse: One woman described this experience to me (see the story Positions and techniques for sexual intercourse) but I wonder whether women who are used to more direct clitoral stimulation from masturbation would be able to use this approach.

Women who fake orgasm

Men tell me that they are sure that ALL the women they sleep with orgasm during sex. But that’s kind of what faking orgasm is about, isn’t it? It if wasn’t convincing then what would be the point?
If men want to know the truth then I suggest sleeping around a bit more and not always with sexually experienced women. Virgins are much more likely to be disappointed that intercourse does not lead to female sexual arousal.
Very few virgins approach sex realising that a woman might need to exaggerate her true sexual arousal during sex. Women learn over time to fake orgasm because men expect them to be moved by their love-making.
If my partner is keen but my mind is not tuned into erotic thoughts enough for me to want to engage on anything naughtier then we ‘make love’.
My partner enjoys vaginal intercourse for the full-frontal access to my body and the turn-on of penetration. Mostly we use the missionary position. Sometimes I lift my legs up so that he has better access to my open body and I hug my legs around his back. Occasionally we use other positions for intercourse, such as, woman on top or doggy style from behind.
We both enjoy intimate kissing and sensual touching. I run my hands over his back and squeeze his buttocks perhaps pulling him towards me. I tense my pelvic floor muscles to squeeze his penis inside me, which increases the stimulation of his penis.
I enjoy mild sensations of arousal, especially when my partner’s groin grinds into my clitoris. I accept that intercourse is not arousing enough for orgasm. It is simply a loving and sensual act that I share with my partner primarily for his sexual pleasure.
“Sometimes they can choose to take a long time so that she gets her orgasm, and at other times, when she is not in the mood for an orgasm, he can enjoy the unrestrained freedom of just going for his orgasm.” (p73 Mars & Venus in the Bedroom 1995)
When I do orgasm (from anal penetration) my partner knows because he can feel the pelvic muscles contracting.
Men’s expectations cause women to fake orgasm
It is men’s modern expectation that female orgasm should occur during intercourse that causes women to fake. After all, the phenomenon of faking has only arisen since the sexual revolution that said that all women should orgasm during sex.
Rachel Swift explains the problem: “There are many reasons. By far the most common is that we fear to display our so-called ‘inadequacy’ in not being able to climax. We are afraid of being labelled ‘frigid’.” (p172 Women’s Pleasure 1993)
Rachel adds: “Another important reason why women fake their orgasm is the fear of upsetting their partner. Many men anxiously insist that the woman must have satisfaction.” (p173 Women’s Pleasure 1993)
The trouble with faking is that it is a one-way street. Once you have led a man to believe that sex is orgasmic it’s a little difficult to make a confession. If a woman hasn’t the guts to admit it first time around then she is unlikely to confess later on.
Even if a woman wanted to be honest, she still has the problem of how to respond during sex. Men want a partner to be enthusiastic for them to enjoy sex. A willingness to engage on fantasy sex play is what makes a woman ‘good in bed’.
If a woman just lies there then sex is likely to last longer, which is not necessarily in her interests if she knows that intercourse does not lead to sexual arousal. Many men assume that women will assist with their sexual arousal as a matter of course.
Women are likely to need to fake orgasm during intercourse because the vagina (as part of the birth canal) has very few nerve endings. The clitoris (as the female sex organ) is much more sensitive. Basically, you have to touch what works.

Sexual arousal arises from an appreciation of eroticism

Much of what is known about female orgasm comes from women’s experience of masturbation. I found Shere Hite’s conclusions useful because they accorded with my own experience.
Shere Hite compared female masturbation with vaginal intercourse to explain why the lack of genital simulation (of the clitoris) would be likely to make it difficult for women to reach orgasm with a partner.
It did not explain why I have never been able to orgasm from clitoral stimulation with a partner, for example, purely from manual stimulation of the clitoris or through oral sex. Of course, the other characteristic of masturbation that is missing during sex is fantasy. That is unless a woman finds a way to incorporate sexual fantasies into her sex life.
It was some time before I came across the fact indicated by surveys that many women do use fantasy to orgasm during sex with a partner. Frankly I was amazed because this was something I had never really considered. The context of sex with a partner was inappropriate for my use of fantasy, which required a highly focused state of mind.
“Many times sexual fantasies are used to induce or enhance sexual arousal, and while fantasies are often combined with masturbation to provide a source of turn-on when a partner is not available, fantasies are also extremely common during sexual activity with someone else. For instance, one study of 212 married women found that sex fantasies help many women achieve sexual arousal and/or orgasm during sexual intercourse.” (p416 Human Sexuality (fifth edition) 1995)
Women use sexual fantasies both alone and with a partner
The realisation that some women do use fantasy during sex (and I was able to confirm this with a few of the woman I spoke to) allowed me to see a parallel with my experience of orgasm from masturbation. I realised that although I used clitoral stimulation during masturbation it only worked when combined with the use of sexual fantasies.
Sheila Kitzinger made the point that sex, especially sexual arousal, is primarily in the brain. I then realised that most accounts of sex focus heavily on PHYSICAL stimulation techniques and that PSYCHOLOGICAL arousal tends to be simply assumed or overlooked. I concluded that this is probably because psychological sexual arousal for men is usually a given.
My suggestion is that just as men need EROTIC IMAGES and stimulation of the PENIS for orgasm, women need EROTIC STORIES and stimulation of the CLITORIS for orgasm. This is my explanation of how I have reached that conclusion and how it fits with men’s experiences of sexual arousal and orgasm.
It makes sense that women will need to use fantasy more than men to reach orgasm during sex. Women have much lower levels of testosterone, the hormone that boosts sex drive. Also the naked male body does not cause women to become aroused enough for orgasm (otherwise women would buy porn as men do).
There is no logical reason why sexual fantasies should not be a part of our sex life (whether or not admitted to a partner). This conclusion helps explain why foreplay techniques may not be as effective as we would hope because, just as during female masturbation, women’s sexual arousal relies on sexual fantasies.

Talking to women about sexual relationships

Once I found the experts had no rational explanations to offer me, I decided to embark on my own personal research by asking women I met in everyday life.
I quickly learned just how embarrassing it was to approach women on such an intimate topic. Very few women are willing to talk about sex at all and even fewer have anything to say about orgasm. The vast majority are silent so it is difficult to know what they think.
It would be nice to imagine that at least some are quietly getting on with it; too busy doing to be talking about it. But given how shocked most women are by any mention of explicit sexual activity, I question how many explore sex beyond the basics.
When I mention that I am a sex writer (only to those women I hope will not drop dead from shock at the mention of the word!) most women avoid the subject completely. They don’t even risk a commonplace comment like ‘How interesting!’ or ‘How brave!’.
This lack of confidence or embarrassment (or however you interpret being snubbed) does not convey the impression that women are happily enjoying orgasmic sex. I can only assume that women’s sexual experiences are not as sensational as we’d like to hope.
I have talked to women of varying ages. No doubt, people will tell me that I have encountered an unrepresentative group of women. One woman suggested that I must ‘live in a broom cupboard’ because of the reactions I have reported. They have no idea.
I challenge anyone who thinks differently to try approaching women they know: relatives, friends, neighbours, work colleagues, fellow holiday-makers etc. What is difficult to appreciate until you try this for real, is just how embarrassing it is to ask anyone about their personal experiences of sex.
Most women have no comment on the subject of orgasm
Many people claim to be relaxed about sex but they run a mile if you ask for details. Likewise women may joke together as a group and compare notes over their lovers’ sexual performance but never their own. The women who were brave enough to talk to me admitted that they never divulged the same details even to their closest friends.
Most women never comment on the popular image of female sexuality. So the views of the more vocal minority win the day. Even young women can be shocked by references to female masturbation and clitoral stimulation. Older women assume that only men and lesbians masturbate and clearly have no idea why a heterosexual woman might want to stimulate her genitals.
A young woman in her mid-twenties told me that she was too embarrassed to talk to anyone about her inability to orgasm during sex. She had assumed that it was her boyfriend’s fault and that perhaps she didn’t love him enough. Only once I told her some of the facts that might explain her experience was she brave enough to mention the issue to her mother.
Her mother, a medical doctor, responded (with slight bravado given her previous silence): “Of course you don’t orgasm during sex!” Some women are happy to accept such conclusions without questioning.
Others want to understand why popular beliefs are so misleading. I certainly did. Unfortunately so often, it isn’t done to ask why because people feel uncomfortable when they have no answers.
One woman told me that she would never allow young people to have sex in her house. I did not understand why since the traditional issues no longer apply. Yet it was clearly impolite to ask for an explanation because of the sensitivity of the subject.
Anyone who doubts that these attitudes exist should get out of their own broom cupboard. When a young boy said: “My parents told me that’s disgusting!” my heart-rate shot up instantly. The taboo of sex causes emotions to run high whatever our beliefs.

Men's sexual arousal is much more easily achieved

In the film ‘True Lies’ Jamie Lee Curtis, as the dowdy housewife turned spy in the role of a prostitute, performs a sexy pole dance for her screen husband Arnold Schwarzenegger.
It seems so natural that a man’s sexual arousal comes from admiring a woman’s body. Yet we never question why a man’s foreplay techniques do not include him using his body to provide a woman’s sexual arousal. For example, a man’s foreplay techniques do not typically include wearing exotic underwear, clothing that accentuates his sexual attributes or moving his body in a provocative manner.
Throughout history, a woman’s priority has been to ensure that she had a man who could protect her (and her children) rather than help her reach orgasm.
“The truth is that, just as women have spent centuries being selected by men for their desirability as sex objects. Women have been evaluating men as success objects. By this we mean that women evaluate men both as successful protectors, particularly in violent times, and as successful providers.” (p34 How Men can get more Sex and Women can get more Love 1994)
The mystery of female sexual arousal
Unfortunately, there is nothing either easy or automatic about female orgasm, especially during sex with a partner. Not only do we lack men’s spontaneous sexual arousal, women also do not get turned on by the physical attributes of a sexual partner in the way that men are.
Nevertheless, portrayals of female sexuality imply that we are able to generate the same levels of sexual arousal as a man even though we lack the same natural advantages. We often have difficulty interpreting our sexual experiences and it is easy to confuse women’s own sexual arousal with their ability to arouse men.
Female sexual arousal is often defined in terms of a woman’s attractiveness to men rather than her own true state of sexual arousal. Even when a woman describe’s herself as ‘turned on’ or ‘horny’ but this is more likely to indicate that she is amenable to having sex than that she is close to orgasm.
“Many men believe that if a woman excites them sexually and looks sexy, she must be experiencing sexual feelings – in other words, if she looks sexy she must feel sexy; if she’s exciting me, she must be excited, too. The man projects his own excitement onto the woman.” (p85 How Men can get more Sex and Women can get more Love 1994)
Men’s sexual arousal is usually easy and, since men hope a lover will enhance their sexual arousal, women often have sex with men for reasons other than their own orgasm:
In the shorter term, a woman can find sex fun and even exhilarating without orgasm if she appreciates being able to excite a man sexually and if her ego is flattered by the sexual compliment
In the longer term, a woman may find other life priorities (such as children) but she still needs to offer a mate enough sex to stop him wandering off with someone more amenable
Some women might hope for an adventurous sex life (or even for sexual arousal and orgasm during sex) but, luckily for all of us, most women do not approach their relationships with men demanding ‘success’ in their sex life. Since women have lower sexual desire they tend to settle for companionship, love and affection, which depend on knowing and liking a person.

The sexual revolution set false hopes for female sexuality

The proposal of the sexual revolution was that, in a modern society with reliable contraception, every sexually ‘normal’ woman would enjoy sexual arousal and orgasm during sex just as men do.
Unfortunately, although only a relatively small sample of women exhibited sexual desire, the popular message was that all women could potentially be as strongly driven by sex and orgasm as men are.
Naturally, there is a bias towards younger and more attractive women but the implication is that all women share in this new found sexuality. Women who did not enjoy sexual arousal and orgasm during sex as easily as men did were now considered to be abnormal, either ‘inhibited’ or even ‘frigid’ (terms never applied to men).
This new definition of female sexuality implied that, once relieved of the old-fashioned female inhibition, truly modern and liberated women’s minds and bodies would respond just the same as men’s had always done. Women were pressured into exaggerating both their sexual desire and their sexual arousal as well as faking orgasm.
Other women often simply accept that sex is one of those areas of human life that will never be truthful or honest. Women have too great an advantage through sex to be willing to admit any potential inadequacy. This explains why women fake orgasm rather than visit a sex clinic. They are not motivated to find an answer they just want to keep the peace.
“… a woman’s sexual fulfilment is much more complex than a man’s. She requires a man with a skilful touch, lots of time, and a loving attitude. For a man, once he is aroused, it is generally a given that he will have an orgasm.” (p72 Mars & Venus in the Bedroom 1996)
The power of female sexuality is to arouse men
When girls become women they learn that men’s response to their body provides them with a tremendous advantage both in earning easy admiration and in their relationships with the opposite sex.
In the film ‘Dangerous Liaisons’ Glenn Close asserts that sex involves women using their sexuality in order to manipulate men. Women’s advantage comes from the fact that men need sex so intensely whereas women do not need sex at all.
This power causes resentment between women because those who pander to men’s sexual fantasies are seen to be capitalising on this male vulnerability and thereby often threatening the stability of marriage and family.
I was naive enough to believe in the promises of the sexual revolution. I was determined to highlight the difficulties for women who hope to reach orgasm with a partner
Women in the 1950’s may have been willing to use their sexuality for their own ends. Hopefully today, there are some women who are prepared to see the benefits in being more honest about what women can hope for from their sexual relationships.
My familiarity with orgasm from masturbation made it more difficult for me to accept a lack of sexual arousal during sex.
The only activities I have found arousing enough for orgasm have been anal sex and vaginal fisting. Even then the sensations are different to orgasm from masturbation (using fantasy).
Something that is very difficult for a man to accept is that even though orgasm is a very pleasant feeling it is still not something that I would miss so much that I would not want to continue living without it. My experience is that sex tends to be much more vital to a man’s sense of well-being.
One man in his sixties with prostate cancer said that without the ability to become aroused and enjoy sex, his life would hardly be worth living. I have never heard a woman admit something similar.

Sex advice for women is often misleading

Natalie, a woman in her late twenties, had a close relationship with her mother who was a doctor. I approached Natalie hoping that a mother with a medical background might be more likely than others to have discussed her sexual experiences with a daughter.
When young women have difficulty reaching orgasm during sex, it can be difficult for them to find answers. Natalie was relieved and grateful on realising that she was not alone experiencing a lack of sexual arousal during sex. She was too embarrassed to talk to me but wrote: “On reading your book, I spoke to my mum who said (I quote!): ‘Of course you don’t orgasm during sex!’ Like this was a well known fact!!!!”
For me, Natalie epitomised the modern professional young woman: successful, attractive and confident. Tall and slim, she wore her blond hair cut short, which gave her a sweet elfish look.
I envied the easy-going friendships she maintained with her male work colleagues both within and outside the workplace. Despite her predicament, it was evident that Natalie had never been either brave or curious enough to look for explanations for women’s sexual arousal through reading or talking to someone.
“Everything you talk about in your book, particularly with reference to your problems with having an orgasm during sexual intercourse, I had been having the same problem. For many years, I had thought there was something wrong with me but was just too embarrassed to talk to anyone about it.”
“In fact, I once heard on a radio talk show someone called in and said they couldn’t orgasm during sex. The response to the person having the problem was to blame this on the man!” Holding men responsible for women’s sexual arousal makes men feel inadequate and puts pressure on women to fake orgasm.
It’s amazing that we think we live in the age of information and at a time when people have relatively relaxed attitudes towards sex. Yet this educated young woman was still unable to find information to explain her experience of sex or even to talk to her friends or to her mother. Young women often don’t know how to orgasm and unfortunately there are very few sources of information to help them learn.
The taboo over revealing information of a personal nature means that we respect the fact that sex experts never discuss their own sexual experiences. But sex is personal and anyone advising others about sex should have their relevant personal experiences on public record. Currently, anyone (even a man) is entitled to advise women on orgasm even if they have no qualifying experience.
Natalie told me: “As a result (of reading your book) my relationship with my partner has stepped up a level. I had been reluctant to have sex with him for about a year as I had it in my head that HIS inability to make me orgasm during intercourse must mean I didn’t love him or don’t want to be with him…!”
“Waiting for the Right Man to make us orgasm is like waiting for the prince to come.” (p254 The Hite Report 1976)
Why is it so difficult to find answers? Female orgasm is not required either for men’s enjoyment of sex or for successful reproduction. To keep her man happy and to have a family, a woman is more likely to be concerned with the basics of whether sexual intercourse is possible than with orgasm (the cherry on the cake!).
So typically sex experts deal with sexual dysfunction (primarily problems with male sexual performance). Any problem with female sexual performance, even though considered to be a sexual dysfunction, is not as well understood. The vast majority of women accept their experience of sex or are too embarrassed to question. Since relatively few women are seeking answers there is little funding to improve our understanding of female sexual arousal and orgasm.

How to use a vibrator to discover orgasm

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 to find out about female masturbation. 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.

Women's sexual dysfunction

Some sources estimate that 10% of women are ‘an-orgasmic’, that is, they never experience orgasm under any circumstances. Women who can only orgasm during masturbation are referred to as ‘pre-orgasmic’.
“Only about half of all the women who have told me about their sexual experiences say they usually have orgasms during lovemaking. The others either do not have orgasms, or find that they usually have an orgasm only when masturbating.” (p80 Woman’s Experience of Sex 1983)
The number of men who cannot orgasm during sex throughout the whole of their lives is negligible whereas, for women, the relevant proportion appears to be around 50% (including an-orgasmic and pre-orgasmic women).
Even these statistics for women’s sexual performance are likely to be optimistic because women who respond to surveys or talk to others about sex are already in a minority. Bluffers, fakers and sex surveys represent the views of only a tiny minority of women. Many other women justify their sexual relationship in terms of loving their partner or having children rather than as a means of enjoying their own sexual arousal and orgasm.
Surrounded by unrealistic portrayals of female sexuality in the media, women often conclude that they are abnormal when they are, in fact, facing a very normal dilemma with sex and their relationships. Instead of reassuring women, sex information today often implies that women’s sexual experiences are dysfunctional. It is also implied that clitoral stimulation solves any problem with orgasm but the truth is that some completely normal women never orgasm with a partner by any means.
Bias in sex surveys
Explanations for women’s sexual arousal simply do not add up. We cannot reasonably categorise such a high percentage of women as having a sexual dysfunction and so it would seem that there is nothing abnormal about either an-orgasmic or pre-orgasmic women. Such women do not have a ‘problem’ at all. They simply need to accept that this is the way things are for many women who hope for orgasm in their sexual relationships.
“Shocking though the statistics are, many women have found it secretly comforting to discover they are not the only ones who experience this enormous discrepancy between masturbation and intercourse. For years I was unable to have an orgasm except by masturbation, and assumed I was a freak. I remember the relief when I discovered Hite…” (p207 Satisfaction Guaranteed 1996)
“Furthermore it’s a pretty safe guess that the statistics are worse than that. Because if it’s a volunteer sample, the women most likely to come forward and be candid about sex are likely to be those who are also successful with sex. And while many people might be tempted to pretend they do orgasm when they don’t, few are likely to pretend that they don’t when they do. That’s about as probable as a woman claiming she weighs ten stone when she actually weighs nine.” (p19 Women’s Pleasure 1993)
Women are only judged to be sexually dysfunctional while we insist that their sexuality works the same way as men’s. Once we accept that women have a fundamentally different (and lower) response to sexual stimuli than men typically have, we can start to understand and accept female sexuality for what it truly is.

Lack of sexual arousal during sex

Intimacy with a lover makes me feel affectionate but I am rarely conscious of any sexual arousal. In fact, whether it’s sex with a partner or masturbation for that matter, I am usually pretty much stone cold in arousal terms at the start.
I might have concluded that I was frigid if it were not for the fact that I don’t see how other women are any more likely to approach sex just short of an orgasm. The female mind and body simply do not work that way. Equally I don’t see other women being any more actively interested in matters sexual than I am – in fact usually the reverse.
As I have never been able to use fantasy effectively I have always found orgasm difficult to achieve with a partner by any means, whether by using positions and techniques for sexual intercourse or through more direct clitoral stimulation, either manual or oral.
So I found it highly reassuring to read on the GoAskAlice! website that other women have also struggled with orgasm during sex. The website Go Ask Alice! is one of the few sources willing to admit that women rarely orgasm during intercourse. They suggest that women often have to settle for the emotional rewards of sex because it takes women much longer than men to become aroused.
“The vagina itself is a muscular tube of about 8 cm that, when adequately stimulated, expands to fit any size penis with ease. When your partner initially penetrates you, the muscles of the vagina contract and grip the penis. As you continue intercourse and become more turned-on, the vagina expands even further – sometimes so much so, you can’t feel his penis inside you no matter how large it is. This explains why for both partners the initial few thrusts are sometimes the most pleasurable because the vagina feels tighter. For most women, stimulation of the clitoris is necessary to orgasm. Intercourse can indirectly stimulate the clitoris through thrusting but more direct touching with fingers or a tongue is usually more effective.” (p8 Hot Sex 1998).
Attitude and expectation for your sex life
Ironically the less inhibited you are the more disappointing you are likely to find real life because you overlook the simple things like nudity. Sometimes people refer to ‘sexual intimacy’, which comes from a man and a woman sharing the intimacies of sex including nudity, allowing someone to touch the private areas of our bodies and the ultimate act of penetration.
If we were all nuns we could probably make do with sexual fantasies based on vaginal intercourse e.g. sex in public, sex with multiple partners etc. The more we read and imagine beyond the everyday, the more we are likely to need to venture into less comfortable territory. If a fantasy is to help us orgasm then it needs to encompass aspects of sex that we consider to be taboo.
When we explore sexual fantasies, we tend to start on the more innocent side and build up to the more advanced or kinky. The same goes for sex with a partner. For example, most people probably stick to straight intercourse for a first date.
Ask your partner to spend some time preparing your body for sex. Get him to shave your pubic hair completely, which can feel kinky and also makes oral sex easier for the guy. An enema can cause arousal so that even intercourse is more sensitive than normal. Try a blindfold or having your hands tied during sex. Visit a sex shop for other ideas to get the brain going.
As long as you are both keen, consider working out a schedule for building up to fisting and/or anal intercourse. Remember the golden rule with these more advanced techniques: take your time. You should expect to invest serious time in just relaxing, lubricating and exploring with a finger. Information is vital: Em and Lo’s book ‘The Big Bang’ is excellent on both of these.

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 fuelled by a much more powerful media.

Real female orgasms

In the film ‘Private Benjamin’, a group of female army recruits sits around a campfire during an overnight exercise.
One of the women says: “I had an orgasm once…” and the others giggle. She goes on to say in a disappointed tone “…but I was alone!” Her girlfriends laugh sympathetically.
In the film, Goldie Hawn plays a spoilt young woman approaching thirty who has been married twice. Happily stoned from smoking marijuana she continues the theme:
“Well, … once when I was with my first husband I got to this place … that was kind of nice and tingly and … I don’t know if this was an official orgasm … but I counted it as one for five years.” She laughs, presumably at her own naivety.
“Orgasm is not just a vague feeling.” (p73 Woman’s Experience of Sex 1983)
Later in the film, she acts as if she genuinely has an orgasm during sex with a new lover. She comments: “Well, now I know what I have been faking all these years!”
Women who think they orgasm during sex when they don’t
To a man, it must be incomprehensible that a woman of thirty can be unsure about whether she has ever had an orgasm. For sexual intercourse to be possible, a man must be at least aroused (in order to have an erection). Women, on the other hand, attribute a whole range of feelings to the experiences of sexual arousal and orgasm in the absence of the knowledge of what real female orgasms feel like.
“When you have an orgasm the pelvic floor muscles always contract. If that does not happen you are not having an orgasm.” (p77 Woman’s Experience of Sex 1983)
In addition to the pelvic muscle contractions, I would describe orgasm as losing full consciousness of your immediate physical surroundings. As a guide, if you are not sure then it has probably not happened yet. A woman who has never had an orgasm thinks of sex as ‘making love’ without necessarily even hoping for orgasm. There is nothing wrong with this approach and many women are content with what they have.
However, it can be difficult to gain any comfort from comparing notes with others because women account for their sexual experiences so differently. Even well-informed and mature women can believe that they orgasm (when they don’t) simply because they do not know what real female orgasms feel like. Female masturbation is relatively uncommon and so most women have much less familiarity with their own sexual arousal and orgasm than men typically have.

Sex experts deal with sexual dysfunction

In the film ‘Doc Hollywood’ Bridget Fonda coquettishly asks Michael J Fox, playing the young doctor, whether doctors know more about sex than other people do. This is an easy and natural mistake to make.
We tend to think of sex as if it were a mechanical or biological aspect of our bodies. In fact, there is no reason why doctors should know any more about sex than the rest of us since sex is primarily about our psychology and our emotions. There are recommended positions and techniques for sexual intercourse but ultimately sexual arousal depends on what happens in the brain.
Most of us accept our sexual relationship for what it is and only seek help if there is a major problem. This is why the vast majority of people who consult sex experts are men with sexual performance problems.
People who go to sex experts do not represent the statistical norm. They are unusual, just as I am, because most people do not go along to complete strangers in order to discuss their sexual relationship, especially when they usually have to pay by the hour to do so! It’s not easy to find answers when a woman has difficulty reaching orgasm during sex.
By the time I was twenty I had read many erotic stories describing imaginative sex play so my difficulty was not ignorance of technique. Instead I wanted to know why (although everything worked by the book for the man) my body and mind did not respond as I assumed they were supposed to. As a well-informed couple, we had tried all the foreplay techniques in the book.
The modern liberated view is that women reach orgasm during sex almost as easily as men do. The more conservative view is that a woman only find sex rewarding as part of a loving relationship. Ironically both of these approaches imply that women enjoy sexual arousal ‘naturally’ during sex and make it difficult for women to compare notes on how to orgasm with a partner.
Sexual pleasure remains very personal
When I consulted therapists in the UK, I was asking: “How do women become sufficiently aroused during sex to enable them to orgasm?” After meeting with defensiveness and incomprehension over my concerns about orgasm, I came to realise that therapists don’t know the answer to this highly personal question any more than anyone else. Why should they?
People who qualify as sex specialists learn about human sexuality through textbooks full of theories, laboratory research and detailed analysis of phenomena such as orgasm. There is no particular reason why female sex experts would have explored their own sexuality, either through masturbation or through sex with a partner, any more than the average woman.
We can all be fairly sure that a man knows how to orgasm both alone and with a partner. But many women have sex without ever knowing how to become aroused enough to orgasm. So there is no guarantee that a woman who is advising others about female orgasm even knows how to masturbate herself to orgasm; let alone how to succeed with similar techniques during sex.
Some people claim to be unembarrassed about sex but only because they discuss other people’s experiences. Very few women (even sex experts) are willing to talk about their own experiences of arousal and orgasm. In particular, no one ever discloses which physical stimulation and psychological arousal techniques they use for orgasm.
So therapists’ understanding of the average woman’s experience of orgasm is based on the findings of surveys. Unfortunately, these can be highly mis-leading: (1) given the belief that orgasm is the normal experience many women assume they orgasm when they don’t; and (2) women often interpret their sexual experiences in the light of emotional rather than sexual criteria.
Self-evidently, women’s sexual performance is not a show-stopper and so most people assume that women do not have sexual problems. Relatively few women ever consult sex clinics. How many are concerned enough about lack of orgasm to pay out over $100 an hour to find a solution? Even in my own case, I went to a clinic more for my partner’s sake than for my own.
Even though experts refer to women’s sexual dysfunction, there are no easy solutions for lack of female orgasm during sex. I was left with a sense of hopelessness: the implication was that lack of orgasm was abnormal and yet there was no apparent solution. At the same time, it was also implied that I was simply expecting too much.
The subject of women’s arousal during sex is still highly taboo due to lack of understanding so that even experts are confused when faced with couples who have unrealistic expectations beyond the average couple. It would seem that female orgasm is simply not an issue for the vast majority of couples today.

Sexual relationships favour male orgasm

Younger women are often seen to be more sexual simply because, until they find their mate, they have more incentive to be popular with men. Dating includes sex as part of a ‘wine and dine’ package fuelled on both sides by sexual ego. Sex is always fun because of the chase and the novelty of an unfamiliar lover. So, single women often struggle to understand the challenges of a live-in relationship spanning decades.
Women who have been married for decades know that it is women who make relationships work over the longer term. When men buy women flowers etc. they are implicitly acknowledging the special effort that women make in relationships.
After the initial romantic glow any woman, to varying degrees, engages in a sexual relationship for her partner’s benefit. Unfortunately, the experience of the majority is overruled by the more sensational. So the idea that every woman is a secret nymphomaniac remains the popular view even though it contradicts most people’s real-life experiences of sex.
For men sex is important regardless of the relationship
Physical intimacy is much more important to men and relationships with women do not necessarily make sense without sex.
Hannah (late forties, children, relationship 25 years) told me of a friendship she had had with a man when she was younger. She enjoyed spending time talking with him. After they had known each other a while he suggested that they have sex. He claimed that it was not a big deal to change their friendship into a sexual relationship. However, Hannah said that she did not think of him in that way. The man concluded that if they were not going to have sex then there was no point continuing the relationship.
“Men will do anything for sex, and will behave quite out of character to achieve it, such as spending several hours being romantic, and paying attention to what a woman says.” (p15 Bluffer’s Guide to Men – 1998)
Hannah told me that she shared my experience of not being able to orgasm during sex. Nevertheless, after twenty five years with her partner she was still prepared to participate in sex on a regular basis (admittedly because he was paying the bills). Instead of appreciating her generosity, her partner had complained that she made no effort to ‘make sex exciting for him’.
“Men often feel very angry with women who never initiate sex and too often don’t want sex. But this anger has a tone of alienation, guilt, and insecurity: men feel instinctively on some level that sex does not involve an equal sharing, especially when they are having an orgasm and the woman does not – and this puts them on the defensive.” (p220 The Hite Reports 1993)
Why does a man believe that a woman should do this for him? It is natural that men hope a lover will enhance their sexual arousal but they should consider what they can offer in return. Men often want to know how to get laid: try putting your own orgasm to one side and investing some time in pleasuring your woman.
If a man wants to enjoy sex for life then, he needs to find ways to make the experience more balanced in her favour. You only achieve a good sex life over the longer-term by investing in your sex life. Hannah admitted that, even if she did not have an orgasm, an occasional sensual massage would be a significant improvement on their intercourse-to-male-orgasm sex life.
“Your partner’s not there to service you, it’s not their job to keep you sexually satisfied. You’re together because you love each other and want to make each other happy. Constantly hassling them for sex does the opposite.” (p228 Hot Relationships 1999)

Explanations for women's sexual arousal

People who like to talk confidently about sex often claim that women can orgasm easily from vaginal intercourse. I am very happy for anyone who can achieve easy orgasm and yet, when I ask for details, the responses tend to be frustratingly vague and defensive. I am not questioning that orgasm may happen ‘naturally’ or ‘automatically’ for some women but it would be more convincing if explanations of women’s experiences did not contradict the physical and psychological facts of women’s sexuality.
“Orgasms are natural, but intercourse is not, for many of us, the easiest way to have them.” (p79 Woman’s Experience of Sex 1983)
Popular beliefs mean that many people assume that women ‘naturally’ orgasm during sex. I have been advised to read a sex manual as if only extreme sexual ignorance can explain a lack of orgasm for women today. Alternatively, I am asked, with a sympathetic expression, about my feelings for my partner: “Do you find him attractive? Do you love him?” The implication is that orgasm comes naturally when a woman truly loves a man.
More informed sources commonly explain women’s lack of sexual arousal during sex and their failure to reach orgasm during intercourse by:
some deficiency on the part of the woman (i.e. that she is either physically or psychologically abnormal in some way);
or ignorance (i.e. that we are not doing it right) including the suggestion that the man might be an incompetent lover.
A popular suggestion is that women have emotional hang-ups about sex and yet it is not logical that women should be more inhibited in their intimate relationships than men are. Given women’s much closer emotional intimacy with friends and their children, it seems more likely that if anyone is going to be emotionally inhibited it would be men not women.
Traditional beliefs about female sexuality explain why women are told that they (but not men) need a loving relationship to enjoy sex (orgasm involves erotic not loving sensations). Of course, the ultimate fall-back is when experts suggest that female orgasm is unimportant, which is only true from a reproductive point of view and when a woman has no expectation for orgasm.
Women need clitoral stimulation for orgasm
Most boys work out how to enjoy orgasm through masturbation by the age of 12 or 13. Some women discover orgasm in their late teens, or in their twenties or thirties. Many others never discover orgasm throughout the whole of their lives. These phenomena are often diagnosed as women’s sexual dysfunction but there has to be a more reasonable explanation for these different experiences.
“Men, imagine having sex without having your penis stimulated. It would certainly not be very much fun.” (p42 Mars & Venus in the Bedroom 1995)
All those magazine articles proposing a million ways to give a woman a mind-blowing orgasm sound very promising but why are they needed in the first place? You rarely see an article explaining how to give a man even one orgasm, mind-blowing or otherwise. These articles prove that there are many women who struggle with orgasm of any description during sex.
It’s about time that sex experts stopped patronising the average couple out there. There are whole books written about female sexual arousal and orgasm so how can it be so straightforward that every woman achieves it as we’d like to think? Even the terms ‘arousal and orgasm’ refer to women’s experiences because men’s sexual arousal is usually easy. Yet so often we are told that the solution is as simple and obvious as pressing a button – the clitoris. Evidently, clitoral stimulation is not everything.
Unfortunately, although an increasing number of women ask about orgasm during sex, there is no research (sex surveys are notoriously unreliable) that provides the answer. Sex experts do not have the time that I have been able to spend on this issue. As a result of my extensive research, I can vouch for the fact that female arousal is not straightforward. Anyone who implies otherwise is misguided: they have either mis-interpreted their own experiences or they are simply quoting popular beliefs.
“… since female orgasm is not necessary during intercourse for reproduction to occur, why should nature provide stimulation for female orgasm during intercourse?” (p38 The Hite Reports 1993)

Applying orgasm techniques to sex

Caroline lived on a farm as a child and was fortunate in having innocent and light-hearted sexual experiences as she grew up. Even as kids they would play the ‘I’ll show you mine if you show me yours’ games on the long bus ride to school.
Her mother insisted that Caroline went on the pill at sixteen. She was not bothered about the sex. She simply wanted Caroline to be in a position to avoid getting pregnant. Caroline had her first serious relationship soon after. The sex was adventurous and great fun.
When they split up, Caroline decided to find out about female masturbation to fill the sexual void. She discovered orgasm for the first time. Young women often don’t know how to orgasm and unfortunately sex advice for women is often misleading. The only sure way to find out about orgasm is to try female masturbation.
When Caroline went back to sex with men, she found it relatively easy to adapt her orgasm techniques so that she could masturbate in the presence of a lover. She did not always declare her use of sexual fantasies to her lovers and some men were not happy for her to masturbate. They insisted that they had to give her an orgasm. On these occasions, Caroline simply accepted sex without orgasm.
“The women who had orgasm during intercourse were usually those who, in a sense, did it themselves. They did not expect to ‘receive’ orgasm automatically from the thrusting of the partner.” (p51 The Hite Reports 1993)
Caroline travelled a great deal, working as a fashion model in Europe, the US and South America among other places. In the space of a few years Caroline had many lovers (she mentioned the figure 80). Many of these were one-night-stands. She simply thought the whole thing was a laugh. As she remembered some of the more outrageous experiences, she giggled. I asked her whether she had been worried about sexual disease. Caroline admitted that she had taken stupid risks but she had been lucky.
Some women enjoy sexual promiscuity
It reminded me of the scene from the film ‘Four Weddings and a Funeral’ where Andy MacDowell enumerates her lovers. Hugh Grant, who had previously thought of himself as a bit of a playboy, is completely deflated by the time she gets to 32 because he had “nothing like that many” girlfriends himself. Andy MacDowell explains that she “grew up in the country – lots of rolling around in haystacks”.
Caroline had sex with men for the fun of it. It was not about orgasm; it was sexual ego. A man’s sexual arousal can be very flattering and Caroline liked the fact that they wanted to have sex with her. She felt that she was the one manipulating them. It seemed quite callous to me but then I have always been a bit square. Plenty of men screw women with shallow intentions. I guess it makes sense that women do the same.
Caroline thought it was sweet that I had only had three lovers. I was never really interested in the ego trip of casual sex. I had romantic notions of love and friendship. As far as sex was concerned, being my partner’s lover and pleasuring him was how I showed my love for him.
Caroline married at 23 and has been faithful to her husband. When I talked to her she was a mother of four in her late thirties. She admitted that sex had become more of a duty over time as her priorities changed to focus on the children. Caroline was very fortunate; other women may find that transferring orgasm techniques to sex is not so straightforward because their sexual fantasies are more suitable for use alone than with a partner. Many women have to learn to accept enjoying physical intimacy rather than orgasm during sex with a partner.

How does a man give a woman an orgasm during sex?

Depressingly often it is asserted that for a woman to orgasm during sex she must truly love her man. A loving partner will, of course, know how to give her an orgasm.
Presumably the woman is so impressed with her man and, of course, his equipment (which is always huge!) that he cannot fail. He doesn’t really have to anything special. He simply needs to do what he knows best and that is to thrust into his woman until she orgasms.
Minor details are glossed over: such as the FACT that since the vagina, as part of the birth canal, has few nerve endings women typically are aware of little sensation from penile thrusting. Equally no one worries about the FACT that most women need direct clitoral stimulation for orgasm and the clitoris is only stimulated indirectly during vaginal intercourse.
Never mind. A man’s fantasy of providing a woman with sexual pleasure remains intact. If he can do this by stimulating his penis at the same time, he is in a kind of sexual heaven. Intercourse allows a man to enjoy his partner’s breasts, mouth and penetrating her vaginally.
Dream on…
Men are not alone in misunderstanding female sexuality. Dismissing Shere Hite’s detailed conclusions about how women learn to orgasm, one woman said “Now we’re being told how we should orgasm, holy shi-! It’s much easier than the babble of a therapist: find a man who KNOWS WHAT HE IS DOING!”
The suggestion is that for the perfect sex life a woman just needs to find the right man: usually a loving and considerate partner. Apart from the extremes of rape, this is complete nonsense! Women don’t need loving feelings for orgasm any more than men do. Orgasm involves a release of sexual emotions (through an appreciation of eroticism) not loving or romantic emotions.
Sometimes people imply that an experienced male lover knows how to use positions and techniques for sexual intercourse. Presumably they are unaware that, no matter how inventive the position, the experts concluded in the 1970’s that the INDIRECT stimulation of the clitoris during intercourse is insufficient to allow most women to orgasm.
A man can provide the additional DIRECT clitoral stimulation that a woman needs for orgasm by hand or mouth. Anyone who has tried this will know that such techniques do not guarantee orgasm for every woman. It may be better if the woman provides her own clitoral stimulation during sex and many experts suggest this as if it will GUARANTEE an orgasm.
Unfortunately, even during female masturbation, clitoral stimulation is only effective once a woman is aroused enough for orgasm through the use of sexual fantasies. It is rarely acknowledged that women use sexual fantasies during sex. Unfortunately, the complex psychological nature of many women’s fantasies make them unsuitable for use with a partner.

Taking the ego out of sex advice

If there’s one thing I would like to change, it is this know-it-all attitude that people bring to any discussion of sex. Adults so often assume that they know everything about sex and yet most people have never even read a sex manual.
Everyone is entitled to their own opinion but it would be more convincing if they were not flaunting their own sexual ego. Whatever our own personal views there is absolutely no need to express them in a way that humiliates other people.
A woman in her thirties was confident in recommending: “I love sex and I am sure I love it just as much as men do. If you are not enjoying sex you need a new partner. You should be enjoying sex! … I have had many lovers which I completely and thoroughly enjoyed wild, hot, passionate sex just for sex sake! “
If women were truly offering to share experiences, they would express their views with more humility. People feel free to make highly personal comments about someone else’s relationship when, in truth, they know very little about sex. It is this arrogant and patronising approach that holds other people back from talking about sex.
Are such women even aware that orgasm exists? They talk about enjoying sex but perhaps that doesn’t include true female sexual arousal and orgasm? They are happy with reality as they find it because sex totally fulfils their expectations. There is no appreciation of the fact that people approach sex from totally different perspectives.
I am discussing sex on a different and more questioning level. For example, when I had sex for the first time I already knew how to masturbate myself to orgasm. Most women never learn how to orgasm by themselves let alone with a partner. Some other women only learn about orgasm through masturbation much later. So they have nothing to compare sex with.
As recently (when you think that sex has been around for eons) as the 1950’s, society was shocked to the core when Alfred Kinsey proposed that women might be even capable of orgasm. So if orgasm is just as easy to achieve, natural and spontaneous for women as it is for men, then it must be the best kept secret ever.
Even today with all the information we have, our liberated views and easy access to sexual partners my point is that it cannot be that every women in the world (or even just in western society) now experiences orgasm during sex. Most people still don’t even appreciate that the clitoris is the female sex organ and the source of a woman’s orgasm however she claims to achieve it.
This is because clitoral stimulation only works once a woman is aroused enough in her mind for genital stimulation to be effective. Even if a woman realises that her sexual arousal works through focusing on complex erotic scenarios during female masturbation alone, it is much less intuitive for her to even consider using similar orgasm techniques during sex with a partner.
Women who are claiming that it is all so easy need to start offering more factual substance to back their claims of sexual arousal and orgasm. Other women out there have also have a female mind and body. We know that without testosterone and the male sex drive, we do not constantly have eroticism, sex and orgasm on our minds.
Any woman who knows anything about her own sexual arousal knows that women have to work up to sex. A woman who admits that arousal takes longer, for example, or that she has to work at achieving her own arousal is more credible.
It is a FACT that since very few women masturbate, by definition, most women approach sex without any knowledge of what orgasm feels like or how to achieve it. So they ASSUME that female orgasm occurs as easily as male orgasm does. The pleasures they enjoy during sex, whether sensual pleasure or sharing physical intimacy, they attribute to arousal and orgasm.
Dating is easy because of the romance that often accompanies sex. Try being married for ten to twenty years and many couples find that a good sex life requires a little investment. Again if it all continues blissfully for you, great, but there’s no need to patronise others. You may think that you have all the answers but if you are to help others you will need to provide specifics.

Understanding women's sexual arousal

Men know what orgasm is from a young age but many women never discover orgasm. They have no way of knowing what orgasm is or how to achieve it – either alone or with a partner.
One woman appreciated for the first time what orgasm was when she learned how to masturbate at the age of 28. She had always assumed that she experienced orgasm during sex but, in fact, she never had (see How to use a vibrator to discover orgasm).
It is difficult for men to appreciate that women do not have the same level of familiarity with their own sexual arousal and orgasm that men do. Women are certainly capable of orgasm but it does not happen spontaneously. Women have to learn how to orgasm.
Women today are told that female orgasm occurs naturally during sex so even sexually experienced women assume that they orgasm during sex when they don’t. Consequently, there are women out there quite innocently misleading others about how easy it all is.
I am trying to highlight that the aversion that many women have to eroticism actually prevents younger women learning to enjoy how to orgasm. Equally the fact that so many women believe that vaginal intercourse is the only proper sexual activity, means that women may never learn how they can enjoy true sexual arousal with a lover.
Women’s lack of appreciation of eroticism means that they often completely miss the point of sexual pleasure. They have no experience of enjoying true sexual arousal, which starts when the mind tunes into sexual fantasies and leads to orgasm through clitoral stimulation.
Very few women masturbate regularly as an adult activity in order to reach orgasm. Many women explain their sexual arousal in terms of their relationship and so they never understand why anyone would masturbate. Most women who claim to orgasm with a partner are talking about emotional sensations.
Women who learn to enjoy orgasm from female masturbation use sexual fantasies based on highly explicit sexual scenarios. These orgasms involve a release of sexual feelings. They are not necessarily any better than the ‘emotional orgasms’ women get from their loving feelings – they are simply different.
It’s important not to be judgmental about other people’s sexual experiences. But it can be misleading when we try to compare different women’s explanations for orgasm because we are not necessarily talking about the same thing. An orgasm, in the sense that men would probably understand the term, involves a release of sexual feelings not loving feelings.
It must be difficult for a man to understand how different it is for a woman. We rarely experience erections and even if we do, we are much less conscious of them. The clitoris may have millions of nerve endings but we do not experience sexual arousal as easily as men do. So a woman enjoys emotional feelings from kissing but not a true hard on as men do.
In case you doubt how common it is for women to have difficulty with orgasm during sex, just take a look at the thousands of articles on the web offering advice on this very topic! Of course, these articles always promise ‘easy orgasms’, ‘multiple orgasms’ or ‘mind-blowing orgasms’ just so couples don’t give up trying!
There is not even one article promising men easy orgasm because male orgasm is most usually a given.

Sexual desire

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