Orgasm has become a key word in talking about sex. Certainly, the most important aspect of women’s participation in sex is whether they have an orgasm. [i] Naturally, male orgasm is not an issue because it occurs reliably.
My partner explained to me that orgasm was not his key focus during sex. Sexual release was a given but he wanted to extend the pleasure of thrusting and his own arousal. At first, I found this difficult to accept. There is so much talk of orgasm. It seems that sex and orgasm are one and the same thing. Certainly, men’s view seems to be: what is the point of sexual activity without orgasm? That is how they seem to evaluate women’s experiences. It explains the pressure that men put on women to say they orgasm every time they engage in sexual activity with a lover. So why do men apply different expectations for women than they do for themselves?
I think the answer is that men see female orgasm as a token of approval. It reassures a man that he has delivered the pleasure he assumes a woman experiences from sexual activity. Female orgasm, in some way, allows a man to equate the female experience to his own. This means he can feel less guilty about sex being primarily a male pleasure, which in truth, it is.
But equally, as a woman and an observer of male sexuality, it always seemed to me that a man is obliged to continue sexual activity until he ejaculates (co-incident with male orgasm). Very rarely does a man give up on orgasm and accept that he will end sexual activity with a lover without achieving orgasm. So the need for sexual release (orgasm and ejaculation) through thrusting seems to be important to men. The vital issue to understand is that men enjoy their arousal and the activity of thrusting for itself.
Orgasm ends a man’s ability to engage in sexual activity of any kind because he loses his erection. But this is a characteristic of orgasm for anyone, even a woman, because orgasm ends activity focused on achieving it.
Orgasm occurs spontaneously and sporadically. That is to say, that we cannot predict the exact timing of our orgasm. It occurs as a result of the mental arousal reaching a climax in our head in combination with the physical stimulation, we apply to bring that mental arousal to a climax. We cannot orgasm on demand or exactly at the same time as our lover has their orgasm (which if a true orgasm, also occurs randomly). The timing of orgasm cannot be controlled consciously. It is only a faked orgasm that can be timed to occur at just the right moment to facilitate a lover’s orgasm. The objective of a faked orgasm is to provide a turn-on for a male lover.
[i] … there was no correlation with frequency of orgasm: women who did not orgasm with their partner were just as likely to say they enjoyed sex as women who did. (Shere Hite)
Excerpt from Understanding Sexual Response (ISBN 978-0956-894762)