Many women talk about sexual arousal and orgasm in terms of their rela­tion­ship. They describe their loving feel­ings for their partner and explain their sexual arousal in terms of the idea that their partner finds them attractive.

Masturb­a­tion has no meaning for them because, for such women, sex focuses on the emotional bene­fits of sharing phys­ical intimacy with their man. It’s important not to judge other people’s exper­i­ences and, as long as women are content with what they have, I don’t want to cause them to feel that their exper­i­ences are lacking in any way.

Women who are unfa­miliar with orgasm are simply placing a different inter­pret­a­tion on their sexual exper­i­ences. They accept their sexual exper­i­ences for what they are because they never know what they are missing. Women are told that orgasm occurs easily and natur­ally during sex so many believe that they orgasm when, in fact, they don’t.

Such women will describe their sexual exper­i­ences, even in terms of arousal and orgasm, as if they arise from their feel­ings for their partner. They inter­pret orgasm as an accu­mu­la­tion of emotional sensa­tions rather than as a true sexual release.

One female sex expert told me: “Rela­tion­ship of course, also plays a big role and impacts how and whether women will climax during love making – whether as a result of inter­course or other forms of stim­u­la­tion.” Women often assume that female orgasm relies on a good rela­tion­ship (quite how I’m not sure) and so they never under­stand how a woman masturb­ates to orgasm.

Remember that you are never too old to learn about enjoying erot­i­cism and orgasm through female masturb­a­tion. It’s all about having an open mind. A woman who has explored her own sexual arousal through an appre­ci­ation of erot­i­cism and through devel­oping her own sexual fantasies is better placed to make the invest­ment in exploring sex with a partner.

A woman who finds sex and erot­i­cism disgusting or morally offensive is likely to be less willing to be adven­turous in bed. If a woman has these atti­tudes but is willing to consider a change, I would suggest starting by reading some inno­cent romantic stories. I read ‘Cath­erine’ by Juliet Benzoni as a teen­ager. Then you can build up to reading some more directly erotic stories.

Portrayals of women as sexual beings are not negative or disgusting. Women just find the raw crudity of sexual activity less appealing than men tend to but with fantasy you can gloss over these prac­tic­al­ities. Women need to approach sex through the mind and through imagining sexual scen­arios where the woman is in control (at least as the director of the fantasy!).

Imagine your­self as the object of a man’s sexual desire. This in part depends on a woman being able to see herself as desir­able. She may have to work on her self-image. Remember that beauty is in the eye of the beholder and for every woman there’s a man who will find her attractive. Not every man wants a blonde bomb­shell anor­exic model in order to enjoy his sex life.

In the end women stand to lose out if they do not explore activ­ities other than vaginal inter­course with a partner. Most women who do exper­i­ence orgasm do so through direct clit­oral stim­u­la­tion — either oral sex or female masturb­a­tion.

The early years of any rela­tion­ship are relat­ively easy as a couple explores ways of enjoying sexual pleasure together. Long-term rela­tion­ships (over 10 years) are more chal­len­ging because a couple needs to open up to each other on a different level.

My partner and I have found talking to other people, rela­tion­ship coun­sel­lors and sex ther­ap­ists, very useful and more couples (espe­cially men) should be brave enough to try this. If you really care about your sex life, you may need to re-think some basic atti­tudes and beha­viours. No one is going to force you into anything and it’s totally up to you how you choose to change things.