When I had sex for the first time, I was disap­pointed because I had hoped that sex would be spon­tan­eously arousing enough for me to orgasm. I didn’t have any clear idea about what I would do during sex except perhaps to respond affec­tion­ately to my lover’s love-making.

It’s amazing when you think of it. I was eighteen years old and a virgin so my vagina was as tight as it was ever likely to be. Yet I couldn’t feel a thing from thrusting, not even when my partner’s penis initially penet­rated me. I was waiting for some­thing to happen and suddenly it was all over.

Even subsequent times I was none the wiser. Natur­ally, we exper­i­mented with oral sex as well as different posi­tions and tech­niques for sexual inter­course but nothing worked. I was so far off feeling any sexual arousal that it was diffi­cult to imagine what could possibly make a difference.

Although I knew how to orgasm from masturb­a­tion, this was of little use to me. Masturb­a­tion was a solitary exper­i­ence relying on being highly focused on sexual fantasies. Sex with a partner was completely different. The emotional envir­on­ment was incom­pat­ible with the use of fantasies.

Erotic liter­ature had given me abso­lute faith that fore­play and vaginal inter­course would provide guar­an­teed spon­tan­eous sexual arousal and orgasm. So I just lay there, like a lemon, waiting to be trans­ported to the heights of sexual pleasure assuming no need to contribute in any way.

Despite talking to experts about my exper­i­ences, so far no one has been able to explain them at all. When I have told them that my boyfriend remarked that other virgins had made the same comment, the most usual reac­tion is silence. I am told that if I read so-and-so I would realise that my exper­i­ence cannot be. They imply that no one else has the same experience.

Ther­ap­ists conclude that since other women say nothing they must be happy with sex. There is little acknow­ledge­ment of just how embar­rassed most people are about discussing their sexual exper­i­ences. I can vouch for the fact that even when a person is relat­ively relaxed about sex (as I have been) the humi­li­ation of the implied sexual inad­equacy is a very effective silencer.

So women learn to accept their sexual exper­i­ences for what they are. They make the best of it for the sake of their partner. Sex becomes an activity to be ‘gotten over with’. Sexual arousal is implied or faked depending on pres­sure from the man.

As a more exper­i­enced woman I now know that a woman plays along with men’s sexual fantasies, in part, to minimise her own effort in an activity that is not designed to provide women with an equal sexual pleasure. After all, it’s human nature…

Why spend half an hour when you only need to spend a couple of minutes? It’s not only pros­ti­tutes who know the value of time. It is much easier for a woman to play along with a man’s fantasies of arousing a woman so that he orgasms quickly.

In the British film ‘Saving Grace’ (2000) two women (wife and mistress) compare notes after years of sex with the same man. They don’t talk about the sexual pleasure they enjoyed, they giggle about how much noise he made when having his orgasm. Men never appre­ciate that a woman’s role in inter­course is often that of a spec­tator: simply waiting for the man to come.

If sex provides men and women with equal pleasure, why do women so often want to obtain a finan­cial advantage from their sexual rela­tion­ships with men? For women, sex is always a trade: either for MONEY or for LOVE (compan­ion­ship, mutual support and possibly family) because women do not exper­i­ence the same deli­rious pleasure from sex that men do.

The issue of clit­oral stim­u­la­tion is a red herring — women aren’t that timid and neither are their part­ners. If women could orgasm as easily as men they would simply use another approach to sex e.g. oral sex or mutual masturb­a­tion rather than inter­course. The problem is that women don’t approach sex turned on enough in their minds for clit­oral stim­u­la­tion to lead to orgasm.

Men look to sex for sexual pleasure (orgasm in partic­ular) but women have to settle for the emotional aspects of sexual rela­tion­ships. Sex can be a sensual pleasure and over time an erotic pleasure as a woman’s clit­oris becomes less sensitive.