The Female Orgasm Gap Part 4: The Power of Owning Your Orgasm!

“Masturbation is a primary form of sexual expression. Not just for kids or those in-between lovers or for old people who end up alone. Masturbation is the ongoing love affair that each of us has with ourselves throughout our lifetime” - Betty Dodson, from her book Sex for One

I’m going to close out this series with my #1 DIY tip for closing the female orgasm gap.....masturbation. I intentionally saved this recommendation for last because I first wanted to highlight the broader sexual norms that contribute to the orgasm gap rather than placing the responsibility for solutions exclusively on individual women.

To set the context, it’s important to know that there is not only a female orgasm gap but there is also a female masturbation gap. Of men in their thirties, 93% report having masturbated at any point in their life whereas only 80 % of women report the same. Yet, multiple studies show that women are infinitely more likely to achieve orgasm during masturbation than in partner sex, making it a more accessible way for women to explore their orgasmic capacity. While I can’t prove this, I’m convinced the female masturbation gap has a lot to do with the orgasm gap.

In a culture that has historically sought dominion over female bodies, it isn’t surprising that female masturbation isn’t encouraged. Women who are tapped into their bodies amazing capacity for pleasure and can access it at will, without male assistance, are a huge threat to the status quo. In this way, taking ownership of your sexual energy through masturbation is revolutionary and flips the script on the sexual narrative women are fed. The female body and sexuality are traditionally valued through the lens of the male gaze, leading to an emphasis on appearance and sexual objectification. If internalized, this can lead to a sense of disembodiment and disconnection from felt experience. This can remove women from the glorious fact that we are all sovereign sexual beings whose sexuality is first and foremost an amazing gift for each individual to enjoy and cultivate for the sheer joy of it----rather than just of value for the pleasure it can endow on a partner. In this way, it is revolutionary for women to know their bodies’ pleasure potential deeply and to enjoy it for themselves frequently. The way to do this is through masturbation, or as I prefer to call it, self-pleasuring.

So why, is there a masturbation gap? Unfortunately, there is still a lot of shame and taboo surrounding female masturbation. Language reflects the culture it exists in and it’s telling that there are myriad common phrases for male masturbation but no equivalent for females (somehow “jilling off” never really caught on). It’s common to hear about young boys discovering masturbation but not as much for young girls, which frames it as a normal developmental process for males but not females. Also, from a young age women are force fed a narrative around love and sex where prince charming swoops in and offers security, happiness, and lots of orgasms. As a result, many women expect men to give them their first orgasm. Unfortunately, this is not realistic as most men are not prepared with accurate knowledge about female bodies. If women are faking orgasms, their sexual partners aren’t given the opportunity to learn, and the cycle persists. The tendency to “outsource our orgasm” can be seen when people talk about whether or not someone “gave them an orgasm”. It’s essential that we start owning our orgasm. We are all responsible for our own orgasm - for learning how we have them, and how to communicate what works best for us to our chosen sexual partners.

Another reason that many women may not masturbate is shame. Shame can be a result of a sex negative culture/parent/religion/trauma etc. It’s normal to feel some level of shame around your sexuality and consequently, masturbation can be a shame trigger. So, in order to combat shame and get comfortable with solo sex it’s imperative to surround yourself with sex positive content and information. If you still feel a bit awkward about masturbation, it can also be useful to get some specific instruction on how to begin a masturbation “practice” (top resources: Emily Nagoski’s nuts and bolts of masturbation article here and Betty Dodson's instructions for first-time orgasm here). The “Mother of Masturbation” is the feminist artist and sex educator, Betty Dodson, and I can’t recommend her work highly enough. She wrote a masterpiece book on the topic called Sex for One and has tons of resources on her website, including a masturbation technique that is designed to translate into easier orgasms during partner sex (if you’re interested click here). Dodson considers solo sex an act of meditation and extreme self-care and will make you feel all giddy, empowered, and feminist about being a ‘self-lover”. Shame thrives in isolation so hearing others talking openly and positively about masturbation helps dispel lingering shame.

If you need additional motivation to prioritize masturbation consider it an essential part of your wellness plan. Masturbation (orgasm) releases a cocktail of positive endorphins and hormones that create less stress and greater health. As a result, orgasms are associated with endless health benefits including stress reduction, increased mood, pain relief, improved sleep, and even increased body confidence (more on all of that here). Another benefit is that it stokes your sexual fire as sex energy begets more of the same. Since many women today suffer from low libido, this increase in desire can benefit your current sexual partnership or fulfill your sexual needs if you’re single. Also, masturbation offers a safe way to explore your fantasies and turn-ons, which helps you more intimately know your sexual desires and preferences. This knowledge empowers you to more clearly share your needs with your partner. And last but not least, masturbation is one the best way to increase your orgasmic capabilities whether you’re seeking a first-time orgasm or looking to deepen your repertoire. You can then bring your orgasmic virtuosity to any partners that are lucky enough to play with you.

I believe the orgasm gap will be closed by individual women who know their bodies and pleasure pathways and communicate that knowledge to their sexual partners. Self-pleasuring women, who take ownership of their orgasms, are less likely to settle for bad sex that exclusively prioritizes male pleasure. This will change sexual expectations in our culture and finally make reciprocity and mutual pleasure the norm.

*I want to be clear that my intention with these articles is not to imply that orgasm is the ultimate goal of sex or put any pressure on women to have orgasms. In my view, orgasm isn’t the goal of sex but rather mutual pleasure. Instead, my goal with this series is simply to encourage a context where female orgasm is more viable and accessible and placed in equal importance as male orgasm.

The Female Orgasm Gap Part 3: Ladies First

When we become educated about female pleasure anatomy, the reasons for the persistence of the female orgasm gap begin to make more sense. It becomes clear that there is nothing lacking in a woman’s capacity for orgasm but rather that the sexual norms are constructed with male anatomy and pleasure as the priority. Once this is understood, the solutions to close the female orgasm gap become more straightforward. One of the barriers to mutual pleasure is that the timing and order in which sex proceeds often doesn’t capitalize on the differences in male and female pleasure anatomy.  

Most women have had the frustrating experience of laying in bed next to a satisfied, post-orgasmic sleeping male, while they remain wide awake, their bodies still in a heightened state of arousal, with no resolution and no hope of sleep. Over time, this sexual satisfaction mismatch can lead to many things, including a perceived low libido and lack of desire for sex, a feeling that your pleasure is less valued than your partners, or even worse an idea that your body is somehow faulty. One simple solution to minimize sexual encounters where only men enjoy orgasm, is to employ a “ladies first” approach to sex, where men postpone their orgasm until their partner has one.

Keeping in mind some basic facts, it’s clear why a ladies first approach provides a context where mutual pleasure is most easily achieved. Let’s take a minute to recap:

1) Less than a third of women orgasm from penetration alone whereas men have orgasmic inevitably once penetrative sex starts.

2) Women require female erections for truly satisfying penetrative sex.

3) Women are easily capable of multiple orgasms whereas men have long refractory periods which make multiple orgasms difficult.

Logically, if mutual pleasure is the goal, it makes sense to craft the order and timing of sexual activities with these differences in mind. 

Sex therapist, Ian Kerner, wrote a whole book on this timing issue called, She Comes First. Kerner delves into the orgasm gap and female pleasure anatomy which leads him to the conclusion that it’s logical for men to postpone their orgasms and to focus on female orgasm first. In his book, he cites a study from Kinsey and Masters and Johnson, which found that among women whose partners, spent twenty-one minutes or longer on foreplay, only 7.7 percent did not reach orgasm consistently. This simple emphasis on female-centric “foreplay” (manual and oral stimulation), drastically closed the orgasm gap. Kerner advocates for renaming foreplay “coreplay” so that clitoris-focused activities, like manual and oral sex, are put in their rightful place, as complete events on their own rather than a precursor to the main event (intercourse).

As an additional benefit, by orgasming prior to penetration (or at least reaching a state of high arousal), the woman establishes an erection prior to the possibility of penetration, making intercourse much more pleasurable if it happens. As stated above, focusing on female orgasm first, also provides a context to take advantage of her body's ability to have multiple orgasms. Kerner discusses the multi-orgasmic potential of women by saying “More women don’t experience their second or third orgasm with men for the same reason that many don’t experience their first--they’re not receiving appropriate clitoral stimulation and male gratification is not postponed.”

Another welcome benefit of a ladies first approach is potentially less performance anxiety for men. Many men feel a sense of performance pressure if they’ve internalized that their size and stamina during intercourse are the main correlates of being a good lover. This belief is a side effect of a culture that is clitoris illiterate and has glorified penetration. It was Kerner’s own struggles with premature ejaculation that led him to study female pleasure anatomy and to adopt his “she comes first” approach. The impact issues like premature ejaculation have on mutual enjoyment of sex can be drastically reduced if men realize that intercourse isn’t the most reliable pathway for female orgasm anyway. So, rather than feeling pressured to maintain their erection and prolong penetration for longer in order to bring a woman to orgasm, men can redirect their efforts to clitoral focused activities and satisfy women regardless. If more men realized the pleasure they could give women through their mouths and fingers alone, they’d relax and enjoy the opportunity to expand their repertoire. When intercourse is no longer the main event but rather one option available among many pleasurable activities, suddenly, performance pressure for men significantly recedes.

With sex, like many other things, it seems that timing is everything. And a ladies first approach, is one that capitalizes on the differences in male and female physiology in the most logical, mutually satisfying way.

Up Next: Solo Sex: The Power of Owning Your Orgasm!

*I want to be clear that my intention with these articles is not to imply that orgasm is the ultimate goal of sex or put any pressure on women to have orgasms. In my view, orgasm isn’t the goal of sex but rather mutual pleasure. Instead, my goal with this series is simply to encourage a context where female orgasm is more viable and accessible and placed in equal importance as male orgasm.

The Female Orgasm Gap Part 2: Why Aren’t We Talking About Female Erections?

In order to close the orgasm gap, it's important to understand what contributes to it. In this series of posts, I’ll be exploring the key barriers that allow the female orgasm gap to persist, followed by proposed solutions. For the first two posts in the series, click here and here.

Sex, like eating, is a natural biological impulse. But the way it’s practiced is a learned phenomenon, highly influenced by the culture it exists in.  For this reason, it’s important to frame the orgasm gap not as an individual problem but rather to investigate what in our sexual culture contributes to its persistence.

One contribution to the persistence of the female orgasm gap is the shocking lack of knowledge about female genital anatomy and physiology. It wasn’t until 1998 that Dr. Helen O’Connell, an Australian urologist, described the anatomy of the female clitoris, including its network of pleasure-inducing nerves. This new, more complete view is slowly trickling down into medical textbooks and gaining traction in popular knowledge. In 2009, Dr. Dr. Odile Buisson and Dr. Pierre Foldès conducted the first complete 3-D sonography of an erect female clitoris, which further educated us to the true size of women’s internal sexual anatomy (more here ).

While we are finally clear on the anatomical structure of the clitoris, it important to also consider the physiology, which is even less commonly discussed – in particular, the female erection. The conversation around female arousal and readiness for intercourse still focuses almost exclusively on vaginal lubrication while ignoring the female erection.

SOLUTION #2: Let’s update our knowledge of female physiology and prioritize female erections.

Surprisingly little is understood about the importance of female erections in female pleasure. It may come as a surprise to learn that women possess the same amount of erectile tissue as men (it’s just internal). A woman’s erectile network is vast and comprised of the entire clitoris, the vestibular bulbs (a.k.a. clitoral bulbs), the urethral sponge and the perineal sponge (for a diagram visit the brilliant sex educator, Sheri Winston’s site). When fully engorged or erect, these tissues surround the vagina, making it both snug and expandable, creating an optimal climate for penetration. When a woman is fully (or at least partially) engorged, penetration is far more pleasurable as her body is prepared.

It is widely understood that attempting penetration before a man is erect is difficult if not impossible. Yet women’s genital erection, which happens to be internal, is ignored despite being equally important to their sexual function and pleasure. For maximum mutual pleasure, it’s key to wait until a woman is erect before entering her. Marcia Douglass and Lisa Douglass, social scientists and authors of The Sex You Want: A Lovers’ Guide to Women’s Sexual Pleasure, refer to penetration without a female erection as premature intercourse. According to the authors, “Intercourse without [female] erection can feel about as exciting to a woman as inserting a tampon. Worse, it can make a woman feel like a mere vehicle of a man’s pleasure, or even as if she is having sex against her will.”  When the erectile network that surrounds the vagina is activated, the vaginal walls are sensitized and prepared, making intercourse far more comfortable and pleasurable.

For maximum pleasure for both partners, let’s make it the norm to minimize premature intercourse. The way to make penetration mutually pleasurable is to wait until a woman’s erectile network is fully engorged prior to intercourse. And – surprise, surprise – the best way to engage a women’s erectile tissues is through clitoral stimulation, which leads to engorgement of the clitoral legs and bulbs. (To engage the full erectile network, also focus on stimulating the urethral sponge, which can be accessed through the anterior wall of the vagina a.k.a. “the g-spot”, and the perineal sponge, which can be stimulated through the posterior wall of the vagina or anus).  With adequate clitoral stimulation, a woman will have a distinct “hard-on” as the clitoral bulbs engorge, forming a tumescent cuff around the vaginal opening. You can tell a woman is erect when her genitals take on a flushed look, and her labia and perineum swell. The vaginal opening will feel more snug as the erectile tissue puff up and press on the vaginal walls. Another clue is that her state of arousal will drastically heighten.

Let’s learn to identify a female erection and make it as important as a male’s erection; because if mutual pleasure is the goal, it is!

Next Up: Why a ladies first approach is best...

*I want to be clear that my intention with these articles is not to imply that orgasm is the ultimate goal of sex or put any pressure on women to have orgasms. In my view, orgasm isn’t the goal of sex but rather mutual pleasure. Instead, my goal with this series is simply to encourage a context where female orgasm is more viable and accessible and placed in equal importance as male orgasm.  

The Female Orgasm Gap Part 1: Rethinking Foreplay

In order to close the orgasm gap, it's important to understand what contributes to it. In this series of posts, I’ll be exploring the key barriers that allow the female orgasm gap to persist, followed by proposed solutions. In my first post, I introduced the details of the issue, so check it out here if you missed it. 

Sex, like eating, is a natural biological impulse. But the way it’s practiced is a learned phenomenon, highly influenced by the culture it exists in.  For this reason, it’s important to frame the orgasm gap not as an individual problem but rather to investigate what in our sexual culture contributes to its persistence. One of the main culprits is in the way sex is defined. Sex is synonymous with intercourse. In sex defined as penis-in-vagina intercourse (PVI), the woman’s clitoris receives only indirect stimulation for a large portion of the sexual encounter.

The acts that directly stimulate a woman’s clitoris—manual and oral contact--are typically relegated to foreplay, a period prior to the real show (PVI) and treated as an optional sideshow. This is largely because sex has been defined in terms of reproduction and male pleasure. This limited definition of sex leads to the misconception that female orgasm SHOULD come from penis-in-vagina intercourse. Yet, with a basic understanding of female anatomy, this is an unrealistic expectation.

We can blame some combination of porn/ movies/Freud/patriarchy for perpetuating this understanding. Most media depictions of heterosexual sex involve little or no foreplay but instead proceed quickly to penetration and the woman’s nearly immediate (typically loud) climax. These scenes show the women’s experience only from the outside observer’s viewpoint and imagination. Women may experience orgasm through intercourse as long as they have first become aroused and erect (yes, women’s clitoral tissues become erect just as men’s do) through direct clitoral stimulation. Yet, these depictions typically ignore the woman’s clitoris, perpetuating Freud’s view that a clitoral orgasm was an “infantile” phenomenon, and that mature women should aspire to the “vaginal orgasm”, meaning orgasm through genital intercourse without any direct clitoral stimulation.  

The result of this persistent narrative is that many women feel “broken” if they don’t orgasm during intercourse without understanding that PVI is an effective path to male pleasure because it directly stimulates a man’s clitoris (Yes, men have what is essentially a clitoris in the erectile tissues that run the length of the penis). Without clitoral stimulation, there is little wonder less than 25% of women say they climax from penetration alone. Yet PVI that ignores the woman’s clitoris persists as a synonym for sex itself.  

A related myth is that women take longer to orgasm than men. While this can be the case during sex that bypasses the parts of a woman’s anatomy that give her pleasure, this is certainly not a reflection of any inherent physiologic limitation. Both women and men have the capacity for orgasm; any difference is because the sexual culture pays little attention to women’s subjective pleasure. How women (and men) come to orgasm is something that is learned. If all a woman learns via the sexual culture is how men gain pleasure, she may face unnecessary obstacles to cultivating her own orgasmic capacity.

So, what to do? SOLUTION #1: RETHINKING FOREPLAY

Let’s finally do away with the word foreplay and bring the acts that most effectively help women climax to the main stage where they belong. It’s ridiculous that the sexual activities that most reliably bring women to orgasm are still known as “foreplay.” There is deeply sexist bias in the relegation of female-centric activities as optional precursors to the main event of intercourse.

A brief anatomy lesson helps guide us toward sexual activities that are more female-centric. A key concept is that, as mentioned above, women and men alike have a clitoris, though it is situated differently in the body. While men’s clitoris receives maximum stimulation during PVI, woman’s clitoris is mostly bypassed. Expecting a woman to orgasm just from penetration alone, is like a woman rubbing her clit against a man’s hip, occasionally bumping his penis in the process and wondering why it’s difficult for him to reach climax.

To make mutual pleasure a priority, let’s do away with with the very notion of foreplay. Marcia Douglass and Lisa Douglass, social scientists and authors of The Sex You Want: A Lovers’ Guide to Women’s Sexual Pleasure elaborate, “Sex without a man’s ejaculation is considered incomplete. Yet heterosexuals regularly leave out the woman’s clitoris and, as a consequence, her orgasm, and they still call it sex. In reinvented sex, “foreplay” would be forgotten, intercourse, optional, and manual and oral sex done to the woman’s satisfaction.”

We need a common dialogue to redefine heterosexual sex to be centered around mutual pleasure. Sex educator, writer and author of O Wow: Discovering Your Ultimate Orgasm, Jenny Block, offers tips for starting a conversation that sets the stage for requesting and redefining sex to be more female-centered. Try telling your partner “Penetration is not the main attraction for me. It’s not the main attraction for most women. It’s part of the menu but orgasm is easiest for me with manual and oral (or insert your personal taste here)”. This allows women to shift from seeing themselves as deficient or broken if they can’t orgasm easily from intercourse and start acknowledging that the way our culture defines sex is broken instead.

My next post will focus on updating our understanding of female anatomy and physiology, more specifically diving into female erection!

*I want to be clear that my intention with these articles is not to imply that orgasm is the ultimate goal of sex or put any pressure on women to have orgasms. In my view, orgasm isn’t the goal of sex but rather mutual pleasure. Instead, my goal with this series is simply to encourage a context where female orgasm is more viable and accessible and placed in equal importance as male orgasm.  

The Female Orgasm Gap and How To Close It: Introduction

Orgasm is a natural fount of pleasure; it is a birthright and a necessary ingredient to a healthy lifestyle. This powerful pleasure eludes many women because stubborn cultural barriers persist that make female orgasm more difficult and rare than it needs to be.

As a health coach, I partner with women to help them find greater health and happiness. One secret to improving health, I have found, is to simply focus on bodily pleasure. By attending to pleasure, a woman can set off a domino effect that leads to better health overall. When women prioritize pleasure in sex, i.e., orgasm, a similar cascade effect can occur. As a woman discovers the pleasure potential in her own body, food cravings decline and a negative body image falls away. For this reason, I believe the orgasm and pleasure gap are missing conversations in the women's health movement. Accordingly, I've taken a deep interest in examining the reasons behind the persistent female orgasm gap. In my research, I’ve found some fascinating (and often disturbing) statistics. At the same time, I’ve also come across several compelling ways women can expand sexual pleasure.

Research shows that 95 percent of men nearly always orgasm from intercourse while only about 25 percent of women do (statistic from Indiana University Professor of History and Philosophy of Science and Medicine Dr. Elisabeth Lloyd). This is a staggering gap! For too long, many women have internalized this discrepancy, worrying that perhaps they are deficient or that something is lacking in their anatomical make-up. Yet, from a biological perspective women are exquisitely built for orgasm. The clitoris boasts 8000 nerve endings whose exclusive function is pleasure. Women also have the unique ability to have multiple orgasms with no refractory period. The truth is that our cultural construct of sexual norms were simply not built with female anatomy and pleasure in mind.

For several reasons, this blog series will focus on cispeople having heterosexual penis-in-vagina intercourse (PVI). Firstly, I work primarily with ciswomen. Secondly, the available research is mostly about cispeople engaging in this type of sex. Thirdly, of the available research, it is clear the biggest orgasm gap occurs with this demographic. The pleasure and sexual experiences of trans and queer women is an even less discussed topic facing similar cultural barriers of patriarchy and secrecy. An excellent perspective on this can be found here

Over the next month, I’ll post a series of articles exploring the key barriers that allow the orgasm gap to persist, followed by proposed solutions. My hope is that we can finally shift some of the cultural norms around sex that do not provide a supportive context for female pleasure.

Stay tuned!