Becky explained via e-mail: “I had my first orgasm at 26 during masturbation – pretty late I know & since then no stopping me with the sex toys : ) . Plenty of my girlfriends have not though – and like you say, don’t seem too bothered about it which I can’t understand.”
Despite this evidence Becky was convinced that every woman must be interested in orgasm. Many women dislike the eroticism that helps a woman develop the sexual fantasies that lead to female sexual arousal. Consequently female masturbation is relatively uncommon.
Ironically Becky’s experience of sex was more miserable than most. “I’m 31 & have had pretty non-orgasmic experiences to date! Issues with vaginismus & then guys who can’t get their heads around that, hormone stuff, dry years & mostly casual relationships.”
As a sex writer, Becky got to explore sex with different men: “I’ve been seeing an escort for various treatments – yoni massage, spanking, fantasy play etc, which has really helped & just started seeing a guy who I think will be good for me so we’ll see.”
As they become more financially independent, more young women explore how they can enjoy physical intimacy through dating men. Even so women stand to gain less from sexual promiscuity than men. All the evidence indicates that most women who learn how to orgasm during sex do so only after years of investment in a sexual relationship with the same partner.
Becky told me: “I had a breast orgasm at the weekend – interesting as it’s never happened to me before : ) ” Becky still did not know how to orgasm during sex and had to masturbate herself to orgasm after her boyfriend reached his orgasm from their sex play. Regardless of her own real life experiences, Becky would not accept that men might have a stronger sex drive.
Women can be terribly naïve about men’s sex drive, despite the evidence. One young woman was passionate in her conviction that “women enjoy sex like men do”. So I suggested: “Presumably you masturbate regularly, get erections throughout the day and are always hassling your partner for sex?” She replied: “No, and I have never met a man who does all these things either.”
“Male masturbation has always been a secret from which women have been excluded. Even in marriage, few women are given the opportunity to witness it.” (p53 Healthy Sex 1998)
It is really quite disturbing that young women today are so unaware of the facts about male sex drive. Every man knows that past a certain point it is difficult for a man to hold back on his instinct to follow through on his sex drive. This is why women who ‘lead a man on’ may find it difficult to convict a man of rape and, in the UK, rape within marriage has only been a crime since 1991.
Society in our age of information claims to want to protect young people but there is a lack of willingness to be honest about sex. Women’s sexuality has been hyped so much that women often believe that they get as much out of sex as men do.
A woman may want to have sex for emotional reasons (such as a subconscious desire to get pregnant) but this is very different to the male drive to orgasm during sex. From their teens men have little conscious choice over their sexual arousal and they easily orgasm during sex whereas Becky did not discover orgasm by any means until her mid-twenties.
Male sexual dysfunction involves loss of sexual pleasure (through problems with arousal) but female sexual dysfunction often involves painful sex. Nevertheless it is implied that sex is always equally pleasurable for men and women. Women need reassurance that pain, discomfort or undue pressure from a partner are unacceptable as part of healthy relationship sex.
It is certainly possible for a woman to enjoy the physical intimacy of a sexual relationship with a man but it is much more difficult for a woman to enjoy orgasm with a lover. A woman needs to accept investing in her sexual relationship for her lover’s benefit especially over the longer-term. It would be nice to have this effort that women make in sex more formally acknowledged.
Excerpt from Ways Women Orgasm (ISBN 978-0956-894700)