One great aspect of men growing older is that they become slightly less obsessed with their own sexual arousal and need for sexual release. Now that his own need for orgasm is less pressing, my partner is able to focus on my arousal and can bring me to orgasm through using a combin­a­tion of anal and clit­oral stimulation.

As a young woman I was never conscious of my own phys­ical arousal and my body appeared to be almost inert to any stim­u­la­tion from my partner. Some­time around my mid-thirties, I found that my body went through a remark­able change — it was as if I blos­somed sexually.

Even inter­course became more sensual due to increased natural lubric­a­tion (still no arousal though). From time to time, my mind gets turned on now and I am conscious of the pelvic area behind the external clit­oris being swollen and phys­ic­ally aroused (gross but true). For the first time, I exper­i­enced orgasm from my partner arousing me via manual stim­u­la­tion of the clitoris.

These phys­ical orgasms are different to those I get from masturb­a­tion when I use sexual fantasies. They are often intensely pleas­ur­able but the increase in heart rate and breathing as well as the sense of releasing sexual emotions with the subsequent relax­a­tion are all missing.

“Orgasms vary, both between women and for the same woman at different times. We exper­i­ence different qual­ities of orgasm depending upon the degree and kind of stim­u­la­tion we receive and also on what is going on in our minds.” (p76 Woman’s Exper­i­ence of Sex 1983)

Men’s need for sexual reassurance

Experts try to reas­sure women by suggesting that orgasm is unim­portant. Unfor­tu­nately, a woman who is familiar with orgasm from masturb­a­tion, assumes that the whole point of sex is the sexual pleasure of orgasm (just as a man does).

However, ulti­mately a woman can live with non-orgasmic sex because women do not exper­i­ence the same sex drive and consequent sexual frus­tra­tion that men do. Men’s desire for sex is driven as much by emotional factors as by physical.

A man in his sixties, suffering from prostate cancer, was worried that he might not be able to continue to have sex. He was so depressed about losing his ability to become sexu­ally aroused that he felt, without sex, life would not be worth living.

Male sexu­ality, including sexual arousal and orgasm, repres­ents not only a man’s masculinity but also his emotional foothold on the world. A long-term sexual rela­tion­ship fuels his ability to succeed in the other­wise emotion-less world of men.

Men hope a lover will enhance their sexual arousal over the longer term. So some women do explore sexual pleasure because, like myself, they consider faking to be humi­li­ating and they are willing to invest in keeping a marriage (and family) together.

Perhaps other women, who have made do with inter­course over decades, are more adept at using sexual fantasies. Perhaps other men accept a ‘lie back and think of England’ partner and use affairs to assist with their sexual arousal.

I told Bruce, the sexual psycho­lo­gist I went to see, that in over twenty years of investing in my sexual rela­tion­ship, the only orgasms I have exper­i­enced are from anal stim­u­la­tion. Bruce, quite evid­ently thinking that I was being overly partic­ular, asked unsym­path­et­ic­ally: “So what’s your problem?”

“Anal inter­course is no longer considered to be abnormal and is enjoyed by many homo­sexual and hetero­sexual couples. As long as the decision is mutual and without coer­cion or guilt, most profes­sionals believe that anal inter­course is simply another way for a couple to find pleasure with each other.” (p12 Dictionary of Sexual Terms 1992)