Some women happily accept the modern media’s portrayal of women as complete sexual beings, for whom spon­tan­eously orgasmic sex is as much of a given as it is for a man.

Other women find that orgasms do not ‘just happen’. Pres­sure to find answers comes not only from the woman who hopes to enjoy what is supposed to be mutual sexual pleasure but also from her partner who hopes to share his enjoy­ment of sex with a lover.

The big hole in all the explan­a­tions is: what do women use for sexual arousal, that is their psycho­lo­gical arousal, during sex?

It’s fine during female masturb­a­tion alone because a woman can focus fully on fantasy. It is likely to be much more diffi­cult for a woman to generate the same condi­tions during sex.

This has nothing to do with inhib­i­tion, personal embar­rass­ment or the desire to put a man’s needs first. A woman’s use of sexual fantasy is like deep medit­a­tion. It takes tremendous focus and concen­tra­tion to reach orgasm from sexual fantasies alone.

After decades of trying different orgasm tech­niques with a partner I have not been able to replicate the kind of orgasm that I get from masturb­a­tion using fantasy. I do get some really nice feel­ings from anal stim­u­la­tion but these are quite different phys­ical orgasms (not the same sense of sexual release).

I am willing to go through the personal embar­rass­ment of revealing the exact nature of my sexual exper­i­ences in the hope that other women might be encour­aged to come forward and do the same.

Natur­ally none of us can ever know whether our sexual exper­i­ences are ‘normal’ or ‘ideal’. Just as, if we asked someone to say what they enjoyed about a piece of music, there would be no ‘correct’ answer.

Everyone is likely to enjoy different aspects of what they hear in a piece of music. Never­the­less, as a relative phil­istine when it comes to music, I can still aspire to under­stand at least some of what can be appre­ci­ated by a more informed and more exper­i­enced listener.

Like­wise my sexual exper­i­ences are likely to be different to other women. I read erotic novels as a teen­ager, discovered female masturb­a­tion to orgasm at the age of seven­teen and then spent decades trying a variety of orgasm tech­niques with a partner. How many women put this much effort and enthu­siasm into exploring and under­standing their sexual arousal?

I have paid money and faced personal humi­li­ation in order to have my sexu­ality confirmed as completely normal. Yet I have to explain to my daugh­ters that offi­cial sex inform­a­tion around the world continues to set unreal­istic expect­a­tions for female orgasm.

Women with my exper­i­ence continue to be told that they are sexu­ally dysfunc­tional. This is not the case. I want to put the record straight for future gener­a­tions of women. It is wrong that couples continue to be misled by what is published about female sexu­ality.

It is also not right that there is so little inform­a­tion today to help women under­stand how to achieve the kind of sexual arousal that leads to orgasm through genital stim­u­la­tion. No one ever suggests that men’s arousal depends on their loving emotions. Like­wise it is incon­ceiv­able that anyone would suggest that genital stim­u­la­tion is irrel­evant to male orgasm.

My motiv­a­tion to pursue this topic has been driven by the unreas­on­ably defensive response I have had from others. I have asked legit­imate and logical ques­tions and been totally honest about my sexual exper­i­ences. In return, I have been patron­ised and given emotional answers by people who never volun­teer to support their opin­ions with their own personal experiences.

Women need to tell men that we want different things in return for sex: compan­ion­ship, mutual respect and mutual support. Orgasm would be great but, if not, then more self­less and sensual pleas­uring where they put their own orgasm to one side.