Women’s orgasm techniques leant from masturbation (including both clitoral stimulation and use of sexual fantasies) are not always as easy to transfer to sex with a partner as experts imply.
“Among all types of sexual activity, masturbation is, however, the one in which the female most frequently reaches orgasm. Even in her marital coitus the average female fails to achieve orgasm in a fair proportion of her contacts … but in 95 per cent or more of all her masturbation, she does reach orgasm.” (p132 Sexual behavior in the human female 1953)
My experience was that the contrast between sex and masturbation alone was so extreme that it never even occurred to me to try to combine the two experiences.
Men dislike wearing condoms because they reduce the stimulation of the penis. Imagine then the position of a woman during intercourse! Intercourse without any additional clitoral stimulation is like wearing a rubber boot as a condom!
“Most women conclude at some point in their lives that the female body is badly designed.” (p19 The Bluffer’s Guide to Women 1998)
Men’s sexual arousal is so much more obvious and easier to achieve: you touch them just about anywhere, wear something provocative or nothing at all.
In the absence of my own sexual arousal, it was much easier to accept my partner’s love-making and facilitate his orgasm. Women’s sexual arousal and orgasm are not automatic but neither is it obvious (even to a woman) how women’s sexual arousal with a partner works. I did not know where to start to suggest what my partner might try to arouse me.
It can appear to women that men orgasm ‘naturally’ (without any artificial psychological aids) but even for men, achieving orgasm often involves making some special effort. For example, most men actively seek out sources, e.g. pornography, to assist with their sexual arousal and to help develop their fantasies for use both during masturbation alone and during sex.
Female masturbation may help but is no guarantee
I had honestly never considered masturbation to be a legitimate part of sex. Masturbation was a mechanism for assisting me in getting to sleep and for enjoying the pleasures of orgasm. Even though I knew that sexual fantasies worked when I was alone, it was as if it would be an insult to my partner to start reading a sexy story when his body was next to mine.
Women who say they orgasm from sexual intercourse, but do not masturbate, do not necessarily have it all figured out; it’s just that they have no comparison. There is even sometimes an implication that female masturbation may prevent a woman from having an orgasm with a partner. This is, of course, based purely on superstition rather than logic as Shere Hite explains.
“Perhaps if you masturbate, you can get a fixation on your clitoris and are thus unable to come during intercourse.”
“The fact that I’ve been masturbating since I was ten has made it more difficult for me to orgasm vaginally.”
These two quotes came from women who replied to Shere Hite’s survey. She replies:
“The truth, however, is just the opposite: masturbation increases your ability to orgasm in general, and also your ability to orgasm during intercourse. Why not? It’s the same stimulation. …
Of course, masturbation to orgasm does not automatically enable you to orgasm during intercourse. There is no mystical connection between the two – just the practical experience with orgasm – how it feels and how to get it.” (p51 The Hite Reports – 1993)
Excerpt from Ways Women Orgasm (ISBN 978-0956-894700)