Shere Hite pointed out in 1976 that inter­course does not provide the specific clit­oral stim­u­la­tion that women need to orgasm. So, it is very likely that any woman who claims easy orgasm during inter­course is mistaken.

Espe­cially given so few women masturbate and so most do not know what orgasm is. Women’s talk of the rela­tion­ship and loving emotions also indic­ates a misun­der­standing about the nature of orgasm.

The light-hearted book ‘Bluff your way in sex’ (1987) lists women’s sexual anatomy as: breasts, vagina and internal organs. The clit­oris is completely omitted. This reflects how little interest most women have in the clitoris.

So even though women are likely to find orgasm much easier through oral or manual stim­u­la­tion of the clit­oris, most women are shocked by the idea of masturb­a­tion and oral sex. Female sexual arousal is so obscure that many women never discover the joys of the clitoris.

Hite suggested that EITHER women masturbate them­selves during sex OR they find a suit­able posi­tion for inter­course to maximise the indirect clit­oral stim­u­la­tion. Yet few couples today appear to be aware that clit­oral stim­u­la­tion is required for female orgasm. Most couples still base their sex life around ‘making love’, that is vaginal intercourse.

If women orgasm as easily as men through oral or manual stim­u­la­tion by a partner why would they EVER opt for inter­course, which provides insuf­fi­cient clit­oral stim­u­la­tion for orgasm? Women settle for ‘love-making’ BECAUSE other activ­ities with a partner do NOT lead to female orgasm. Inter­course facil­it­ates male orgasm, which is a much easier goal than female orgasm.

Male nudity does not cause female sexual arousal

Under­stand­ably, it is diffi­cult for a man to know what it’s like to be a woman. Men natur­ally hope that women respond sexu­ally just as men do but exper­i­ence of real women should help them realise that women’s sexu­ality is quite different. As long as we expect women to respond as men do then we will always conclude that women are dysfunctional.

The under­lying assump­tion is that women approach sex from a similar stand­point to men – just short of an orgasm. But women are not full of testosterone (the sex hormone) and so they do not exper­i­ence daily genital erec­tions as men do. Sadly (for matching hetero­sexual part­ners’ sex drives) female sexu­ality involves women being much less highly sexed than men.

Person­ally I have never found that clit­oral stim­u­la­tion helps with sexual arousal during vaginal inter­course. This is because sexual arousal depends on what happens in the brain and does not arise purely from phys­ical stim­u­la­tion. Women do not approach sex with suffi­cient mental arousal for genital stim­u­la­tion to be effective.

Men enjoy their fantasies and arousal through regular use of porn and masturb­a­tion. Women do not use images of naked men for orgasm during female masturb­a­tion (women use an intense mental focus on sexual fantasies). What psycho­lo­gical stimuli do women use to help them become aroused enough IN THEIR MINDS to reach orgasm during sex?

Women use fantasy because they have to raise their arousal levels from a much lower base level than men do at the start of any sexual activity (masturb­a­tion or sex). I am asking women whether they have been able to use fantasy during sex and, if not, what they use for sexual arousal with a partner.

Ways Women Orgasm has one key aim: to high­light just how few women are confident about discussing orgasm in any context and how even fewer are able to explain convin­cingly how they reach orgasm with a partner. The current state of mystery and ignor­ance evid­ently suits many people but others would benefit from a more reasoned account of female sexu­ality.