When my partner and I decided to get married, his work-mates took him out for a beer to convince him that marriage would mean the end of his sex life.

Natur­ally no woman ever gave me similar advice. I accepted early on that a woman needs to invest in sex for her man’s sake. Even so, I was prepared to believe that there was some­thing wrong with me.

So when I first talked to ther­ap­ists, I simply wanted to under­stand how other women were able to reach orgasm during sex. What surprised me was that my ques­tions were met with so much defensiveness.

They insisted not only that women have an equal sex drive but that they ‘natur­ally’ reach orgasm during sex. Later I real­ised that my own starting point of orgasm through masturb­a­tion was part of the problem. Many women, even sex experts, have been unenthu­si­astic about female masturb­a­tion.

Sex experts are never required to acknow­ledge the limits of their own sexual exper­i­ences. So women (and even men) can advise on female orgasm without any direct know­ledge of how a woman reaches orgasm even through female masturb­a­tion. This explains why sex experts cannot agree on whether clit­oral stim­u­la­tion is needed for female orgasm.

The male editor of an on-line sexu­ality journal told me: “We don’t have enough data to say that clit stim is “required” as is fantasy. The fact that some women find that works well for them does not prove it is required. Some women report orgasm by fantasy alone, some by massage of the skin alone, some by BDSM. Kinsey pointed out the huge range of human sexual behavior.”

I agree that BDSM (Bondage, Domin­a­tion, Sadism & Masochism) may cause sexual arousal. But once a person is aroused why wouldn’t they want to stim­u­late their genitals (clitoris/penis) in order to exper­i­ence orgasm? Men certainly do.

Very few women are familiar with orgasm

Women insist that they orgasm from inter­course but they never describe HOW they reach orgasm. If women use clit­oral stim­u­la­tion and sexual fantasies to orgasm during female masturb­a­tion, how do they achieve a similar result during sex? Women would be more convin­cing if they were less defensive and more willing to provide explicit explan­a­tions for orgasm.

A female director of a UK sex clinic wrote: “I also believe that you are still over focused on the clit­oris and the view that clit­oral stim­u­la­tion is ‘the real thing’ and that women gener­ally are not satis­fied through inter­course; again because of your own exper­i­ence. I agree with you that in many cases this is the fact, but there are also many women who can have satis­fying orgasms through sexual intercourse.”

Other experts tell me that labor­atory exper­i­ments indicate that the clit­oris has as many nerve endings as the penis and, that as an organ, the clit­oris extends back into the body and so it is compar­able in size with the penis. Is this a compet­i­tion or what?

I do not doubt these facts but … SO WHAT? I ques­tion what they have to do with women’s real life exper­i­ences of sex. I know that a woman can become sexu­ally aroused but how often do women exper­i­ence this level of arousal in prac­tice? And what do experts suggest is likely to cause phys­ical sexual arousal (including a clit­oral erec­tion) in the average woman?

Another female expert was enraged by the idea that women might struggle with orgasm: “You mention nothing of the G-spot or the fact that the clit­oris extends deep into the body cavity and there­fore can be stim­u­lated through thrusting. It’s still true that fewer women enjoy orgasm through penetration…”

So why is the fact that some women never orgasm through vaginal inter­course not published as part of the whole picture of female sexu­ality? Why does no one mention that many women never orgasm at all? Equally no one admits that women who enjoy masturb­a­tion alone, often never learn how to share the same exper­i­ence with a partner (and not through lack of trying!).