Men should take comfort from the facts of female sexu­ality. Most women are unlikely to orgasm from inter­course alone (which provides insuf­fi­cient clit­oral stim­u­la­tion for orgasm) and yet amaz­ingly few women ask about lack of orgasm.

In addi­tion to the obvious personal embar­rass­ment, likely explan­a­tions include:

• Not every woman is inter­ested in orgasm, whether from masturb­a­tion or from sex.
• Relat­ively few women masturbate and so many women never know what orgasm is.
• Some women assume that they orgasm during sex when, in fact, they don’t.
• Others accept that sex involves male orgasm rather than hoping for their own.

In the film ‘Erin Brock­ovich’ (2000) Aaron Eckhart plays the free-spirited boyfriend. Despite the cool image (tattoos and Harley Davidson), most men prob­ably disrespect Eckhart’s role because he offers to look after the chil­dren of the inde­pendent and career-focused Julia Roberts. In fact, Eckhart is incred­ibly sexy in this role and many women would love to go to bed with a man who exudes such charm, affec­tion and emotional warmth.

Regard­less of her sexual expect­a­tions, any woman is more likely to offer sex when she feels good about the rela­tion­ship and loving towards her partner. Romance (affec­tionate and compan­ion­able time spent together) can lead a woman to be more amen­able to sex.

However, these stimuli are very different to those she needs to reach orgasm (sexual fantasies involve explicit erot­i­cism). Sadly, Nature has no need to care about female orgasm. As long as a woman is amen­able to having sex, the job is done!

Emotional intimacy

The film ‘Over­board’ (1987) stars Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell. Goldie plays a spoilt million­airess who loses her memory and Kurt plays the carpenter, who purely out of revenge, pretends that she is married to him with his four children.

Sexual rela­tion­ships favour male orgasm and it is clear that he would have little problem having sex with this woman he hardly knows and even dislikes. It is equally clear that she would consider it out of the ques­tion to have sex with a man she cannot remember knowing. In order to be amen­able to sex, a woman needs to find a man sexu­ally attractive. Women take longer than men to decide on this point because a woman is not looking for good looks alone but also for a man who is devoted to her.

“Men are most comfort­able expressing love through sex, through shared activ­ities, through being a good provider, and through just being together…” (p77 Why Men don’t get enough Sex and Women don’t get enough Love 1994)

Later in the story, they get to know each other and one evening, saying it is her birthday, they go on a date. After dancing, they talk and gaze at the evening sky while romantic music plays. They kiss and, on returning home, ‘make love’ for the first time.

“98 percent of the women… said they would like more verbal close­ness with the men they love; they want the men in their lives to talk more about their own personal thoughts, feel­ings, plans and ques­tions, and to ask them about theirs.” (p27 Women & Love 1987)

The woman now feels affec­tion for the man and finds him phys­ic­ally attractive. Of course, he always was attractive but he suddenly appeals because she respects him and cares about him. Perhaps it is as self evident to women that rela­tion­ships are about compan­ion­ship as it is to men that they are about phys­ical intimacy. In fact, both are part of a long-term relationship.

“Men want friends to play with, … whereas women want friends to talk to. ” (p24 The Bluffer’s guide to Women)