Alex Comfort’s book ‘The Joy of Sex’ (1972) docu­mented primarily posi­tions for inter­course that he and his mistress had found pleas­ur­able as part of their affair. The affair was quite open and the two lovers shared the family home with his wife and son.

Don’t get me wrong. What Alex Comfort achieved was amazing at the time. His book brought erot­i­cism into respect­able marital sex and promoted the idea that a woman could hope to enjoy sexual pleasure with a lover.

One has to ask though. Why could a man pleasure his mistress and yet not (presum­ably) his wife? As a younger, more impres­sion­able woman, was it possible that his mistress was impressed by more than his sexual ego?

The fact is that a successful sexual rela­tion­ship is more often than not defined by the ease of the man’s sexual arousal, not the woman’s.

So natur­ally sex is easier for a younger woman. The woman’s role in sex is simply to accept her lover’s love-making. Equally male sexual success is viewed through the eyes of the beholder. A wife sees only the man. The mistress (younger woman) sees a sex god.

I hate to disil­lu­sion anyone, partic­u­larly when it comes to sexual fantasy. But is has to be said that if a sexual tech­nique was infal­lible then it would work with every woman. The usual explan­a­tion for women who remain unmoved is that they are frigid.

The miscon­cep­tion that vaginal inter­course, or any phys­ical stim­u­la­tion tech­nique for that matter, will lead to spon­tan­eous female sexual arousal leads to women taking a passive stance in sex. They continue to hope indef­in­itely that a man, knowing how to reach his own orgasm, will somehow know how to make ‘a miracle’ happen for his woman too.

We all assume that a woman needs to do nothing during sex except wait for her man to deliver her sexual pleasure on a plate. Sadly we are handi­capped by our faith in the sexual fantasy that male thrusting alone will even­tu­ally lead to female orgasm.

“… a woman’s sexual fulfil­ment is much more complex than a man’s. She requires a man with a skilful touch, lots of time, and a loving atti­tude. For a man, once he is aroused, it is gener­ally a given that he will have an orgasm.” (p72 Mars & Venus in the Bedroom 1995)

You don’t say?! The trouble is that even though experts refer to women’s sexual dysfunc­tion, no one has any answers for a lack of female orgasm during sex. I was left with a sense of hope­less­ness: the implic­a­tion was that lack of orgasm was abnormal and yet there was no apparent solu­tion. At the same time, it was also implied that I was expecting too much.

This is my main gripe with ‘Joy of Sex’ which is still published today without any acknow­ledge­ment (1) that inter­course is unlikely to be as easily orgasmic for women as it is for men and (2) that phys­ical stim­u­la­tion tech­niques of any kind are useless without accom­pa­nying psycho­lo­gical arousal. No sex manual ever talks about how women get turned on enough to orgasm.

The implic­a­tion is that women can achieve the same levels of arousal from phys­ical sex play that men do. And yet not only do women not approach sex already aroused as men tend to be but also their minds and bodies do not respond as men’s do.

For one, male nudity and the kind of phys­ical sex play that men enjoy, do not cause a woman to become aroused enough for orgasm. So a woman needs to find a way to incor­porate her fantasies into her sex life if she is ever to exper­i­ence an orgasm.

Anyone, male or female, whether alone or with a partner, takes a state of mental arousal to orgasm through genital stim­u­la­tion. So, firstly clit­oral stim­u­la­tion is needed for female orgasm but MUCH MORE IMPORTANTLY a woman needs to be mentally aroused enough for genital stim­u­la­tion to be effective. Inter­course is key to repro­duc­tion but not to women’s sexual arousal.