The website ‘Go Ask Alice!’ confirms that it is likely to be diffi­cult for a woman to reach orgasm through inter­course since the clit­oris is not located inside a woman’s vagina. They suggest that women should aim to have their orgasm during other sexual activity either before or after intercourse.

Any woman who can climax with a partner either by using orgasm tech­niques from masturb­a­tion or through oral sex can at least enjoy orgasm during love-making. The problem occurs when a woman never learns how to orgasm during sex because she does not succeed with applying orgasm tech­niques to sex.

“a consid­er­able portion of the sexual malad­just­ment in marriage arises from the fact that the average female is aroused sexu­ally less often than the average male, and that she frequently has diffi­culty in reaching orgasm in her marital coitus.” (p172 Sexual beha­vior in the human female 1953)

Men’s sexu­ality is straight­for­ward in the sense that they get turned-on, they stim­u­late their penis and mostly they orgasm. Men can masturbate regard­less of whether they stand, sit or lie down. They orgasm from oral sex, inter­course etc.

Women’s sexu­ality is not nearly as flex­ible. Most women only ever find one way to orgasm and the easiest way is through masturb­a­tion alone. Even then, most women masturbate in a very specific way. For example, I only ever masturbate on my front with my legs mostly together and by using my fingers. I have tried a vibrator but it didn’t do anything for me. I have tried oral sex and that also does nothing for me. My fingers appear to provide the best focused stim­u­la­tion that I need for orgasm.

So the dilemma for the so-called pre-orgasmic woman, who can only orgasm during masturb­a­tion, is that she is never able to orgasm during sex. She has to accept that she has her orgasm during time alone and that sex with a partner involves making the most of other aspects of phys­ical intimacy including enjoying a man’s arousal and more sensual pleasuring.

Modern hopes for female orgasm during sex

Sex with a partner can quite legit­im­ately include activ­ities other than vaginal inter­course but ulti­mately most of us end up with a pattern for sex that includes inter­course or penet­rative sex at some point. This may simply be because Nature intended that men should get the best possible sexual satis­fac­tion from orgasm achieved by thrusting during penet­rative sex.

“One thing that all words about sex have in common, the four-letter words, medical words and euphem­isms, is that they include the idea of penet­ra­tion of a vagina by a penis. You haven’t really “made love” unless this has happened.” (p36 Woman’s Exper­i­ence of Sex — 1983).

So the fact that inter­course does not facil­itate female orgasm is still an issue even if a woman can orgasm by other means. A woman who is familiar with orgasm from masturb­a­tion is likely to be less accepting of a role focused on facil­it­ating male orgasm. Anyone who is familiar with orgasm is likely to struggle to see the point of sexual activity without their own orgasm.

Either way whether she is familiar with orgasm or not, in the absence of her own sexual arousal, a woman approaches her sexual rela­tion­ship with a man through emotional (loving and romantic) feel­ings rather than sexual. Romance does not help with female orgasm but it may cause a woman to be more amen­able to sex by accepting her partner’s love-making.

“Most women want affec­tion and close­ness and they obtain great sexual enjoy­ment if their partner arouses them, by stim­u­lating their erotic areas gently and seduct­ively; but once a woman has exper­i­enced an orgasm, she wants that too.” (p106 EveryMan 1980)

What amazes me is that everyone under­stands imme­di­ately if a man has even temporary diffi­culties with arousal but my dilemma meets with incom­pre­hen­sion. Why are you bothered about female orgasm when other women appear content? Sex is an unbe­liev­ably embar­rassing topic and given the defens­ive­ness and lack of sympathy I have met with I can under­stand why.