Let’s imagine, for a moment, that men and women experience the same level of responsiveness (orgasm frequency). Even so, responsiveness varies between individuals. There would inevitably be times when one lover or the other wanted more sex. There would be many complaints from women of all ages that they were not getting enough sex. This does not happen.
The willingness of some women to provide male turn-ons, by suggesting that male fantasies are a reality, make it difficult for couples to find answers. The fact that women do not respond as men think they should, makes sex taboo. Some women provide turn-ons that are directed towards getting what those women want. This is sometimes called prick-teasing because a woman’s objective is rarely to provide male gratification but typically only to titillate. A woman’s breasts sustain a baby and her vagina satisfies a man’s sexual needs. A woman can feel loved because she is needed by those she loves. A woman may enjoy using her body to provide a man with the release he needs.
Alfred Kinsey found a correlation between male responsiveness and the age at which men became adolescent (defined by a boy’s first ejaculation). Men who became adolescent before the age of twelve were about twice as responsive (their orgasm frequencies were twice as high) as men who became adolescent at a later age. Kinsey found that once men married, they masturbated less because they had intercourse with their wives instead . In other words, a single man has complete control over his total sexual outlet but a married man depends on a partner’s amenability for his sexual outlet.
Any two people are likely to have different levels of responsiveness. So married men’s intercourse frequencies should be affected by their wives’ responsiveness. This is not the case. Kinsey was surprised to find that the frequency with which couples had intercourse varied according to the man’s sex drive. Kinsey noted that there was exactly the same correlation between age of adolescence and orgasm frequency for married men as for single men. Couples have intercourse with frequencies that depend solely on a man’s responsiveness and that have nothing to do with a woman’s responsiveness.
Kinsey also found couples have intercourse with a regularity that is not matched by any other activity that women engage in. He found that women orgasm through masturbation or lesbian activities only once every 2 to 3 weeks. So it is highly unlikely that women can orgasm by any means every time a man has one because of their lower responsiveness. Kinsey found that young couples had intercourse on average between two and four times a week. This frequency slowed down over the years in line with the gradual decline in male responsiveness. By the age of forty intercourse frequencies for the average couple had dropped to about once a week on average.
Kinsey met some couples who lived in rural areas and had intercourse four times a day every day of the week. It is unlikely that modern lifestyles allow couples to have sex this frequently today. But even in the 1950s such frequencies were unusual. Most couples undoubtedly hover around the once a week mark. This is logical since the weekend offers more opportunity for companionable activities. Women who claim to orgasm are no more amenable to intercourse than other women. Nor do they initiate intercourse more than women who know orgasm is impossible. All the eulogising about sex and presumed enthusiasm for sex, does not lead to more sex for men.
Some women refer to masturbation just to be fashionable but they have no interest in discussing explicit details. Women often dislike erotic detail and yet arousal is caused by explicitness. By refusing to give details, women defend their ignorance. Women who boast about orgasm with a lover dismiss masturbation as inferior. They are confident to do so because they know that men focus on women’s sociable responses. They obviously don’t appreciate that the research indicates they have never had a real orgasm. No woman is called dysfunctional for not masturbating. Female orgasm with a lover is political because of men’s desire for women to be sexually willing.
The anatomy, the physical stimulation and the erotic turn-ons needed for male orgasm are evident not only a man but also to his lover. By contrast, women’s responses are not such that men can divine the turn-ons and stimulation involved. That doesn’t stop men trying to guess. It is suggested that some women can orgasm from intercourse because of the proximity of the clitoris to the vagina. This is like saying that if a man’s testicles are stimulated, he will orgasm due to the proximity of the testicles to the penis. Reproductive organs, such as the testes and the vagina, cannot cause orgasm. This kind of flawed argument is typical of the endless guessing regarding the anatomy in attempts to explain how women could orgasm from intercourse.
These suggestions all come from men because few women are interested in their own sexuality. Men’s motivation is the ego behind the idea that a man gives a woman an orgasm. Women rarely discuss female orgasm except for those who compete for male approval. The sensations of intercourse are vague and diffuse. So the anatomy involved, in the orgasms women think they have, could be attributed to anatomy anywhere within the pelvis. The anatomy involved in a true orgasm is easy to identify. If women masturbated to orgasm, they would know for sure what anatomy was involved. If women had orgasms from activity with a lover, then their partners would also know.
Read all the sex surveys you want but you still won’t really know what other people do in bed because what people say and what people do are two totally different things. (Tracey Cox)
Excerpt from Learn About Sexuality (ISBN 978-0956-894748)