One of the reasons that adults find it diffi­cult to discuss sex openly is because of the personal nature of sex. It’s important to consider how other people might feel as a result of what we say.

So men can be offended if it is implied that because they are enthu­si­astic about sex this neces­sarily means that they are less discrim­in­ating. Not every man has been with a pros­ti­tute, for example.

Natur­ally there are women who are promis­cuous but this is more down to person­ality and personal values than to sex drive. They have some­thing to prove but it’s not about enjoying orgasm during sex.

There is no value in judging people’s sexual decisions but only in differ­en­ti­ating between men and women’s motiv­a­tions in a sexual rela­tion­ship. These are likely to differ because it is much more diffi­cult for a woman to orgasm during sex.

The evid­ence supporting women’s greater diffi­culties with sexual arousal compared with men are well docu­mented. Never­the­less, it takes great courage to be truly open and honest about our personal sexual exper­i­ences. Anyone who does so makes an easy target for others who may not be so ready to put their own exper­i­ences under the spotlight!

It’s great that some women exper­i­ence easy sexual arousal with a partner. But this is certainly not true for all women. It’s important, when offering advice, not to insinuate that any woman who does not orgasm during sex is sexu­ally inadequate.

In over 10 years of talking to women about sex I have found very few who are willing to be explicit. The vast majority of women are offended by any sexual phenomena as explicit as clit­oral stim­u­la­tion or sexual fantasies. They approach sex through their rela­tion­ship and assume that sex revolves around emotional and sensual (rather than expli­citly sexual or erotic) pleasures.

“For most males, discus­sions of sex often provide some sort of erotic stim­u­la­tion. They do not provide anything like the same sort of stim­u­la­tion for the average female, and in consequence she does not have the same inspir­a­tion for enga­ging in such conver­sa­tions.” (p676 Sexual beha­vior in the human female 1953)

Women who are confident that orgasm with a partner is easy may want to consider whether we are talking about the same exper­i­ence. A woman who masturb­ates appre­ci­ates how to take a mental state of sexual arousal to orgasm through genital stim­u­la­tion. If we are to encourage women to be more open about sex it is important to respect each other’s experiences.

I am specific­ally offering reas­sur­ance to women who are familiar with orgasm from female masturb­a­tion and who would like to exper­i­ence some­thing similar with a partner. A woman who masturb­ates (as an adult activity with the aim of enjoying sexual arousal and orgasm) is likely to be hoping for true sexual arousal from sex because she is familiar with orgasm.

It’s a real positive that men slow down a bit as they grow older (post 35) — older men stand to make better lovers! It is much more diffi­cult for a younger man to focus on his partner’s arousal because his own orgasm is his top priority.

Equally the clit­oris becomes slightly less sens­itive and so a lover may be able to stim­u­late a woman’s clit­oris more directly — still gently and over the hood though. Over time, the man needs to learn how to pleasure a woman using erotic and sensual massage. Even if orgasm is missing, a woman will appre­ciate a sex life that is more two-way.