A young and sexy woman complained about the male attention she got every time she left the hostel on 42nd Street, Manhattan, dressed in her high heels and low cleavage. Yes, well… It is relatively easy for a woman to attract a man’s attention by enhancing her looks.

It is more difficult for her to cash in on the advantage by enjoying orgasm during sex. Women are not automatically aroused as men are and so do not have the same sex drive to orgasm during sex. A woman is rarely seeking sex in the sense that a man does.

Naturally a man assumes that a woman who has made herself attractive must be interested in sex. Since men never put on make-up or dress provocatively we might think they are never interested in sex.

Of course this does not follow. The sexes have complementary roles. Women attract attention and then men make an advance. So women’s bodies are a sexual commodity in a way that men’s rarely are.

Men want control in sexual situations because (1) intercourse relies on their sexual arousal and (2) their sexual performance (ability to orgasm and ejaculate) ultimately leads to reproduction.

A man selects a woman he finds attractive (which explains why some women encourage male attention) but a woman chooses the man she wants. These behaviours are fundamental to our dating and mating rituals. Rich men marry young and sexy women over successful women. So our heterosexual society tends to judge women by their looks before their achievements.

Women have lower sexual desire

One year at college I lived with six other female students. Two of them were always entertaining young men in their rooms. The rest of us assumed that they must have been having sex with at least some of the stream of men who came through our flat. My conclusion was not that they achieved sexual satisfaction with these men but that they enjoyed being so popular.

Most women need a stable relationship in which there is a high degree of trust and good communication if they are to orgasm during sex. Young women often lack confidence and being promiscuous is an easy way to be popular, with men at least.

Women’s difficulties with sexual arousal and orgasm are often blamed on low libido but women naturally feel lower sexual desire than men as evidenced by:

• our enthusiasm for eroticism, either visual pornography or erotic stories;
• our willingness to indulge in sexual fantasies;
• the pleasure we obtain from admiring the sexual attributes of the opposite sex; and
• how frequently we masturbate and our motivation to initiate sex with a partner.

The oldest profession (prostitution) says it all: a relatively few women provide sex for many more men. Of course the women are shamed for making money out of men’s need. Yet men often compensate women financially for sex – not an indication of equal pleasure. Even in our supposedly liberated times over 90% of the Internet provides some form of sex for men.

Inevitably there must be some women who are sexually insatiable and some men who are unmoved by sex but these individuals do not represent the ‘norm’. Most women never talk about lost sexual opportunities. They talk about commitment and trust. This enormous gap between the sexes means that most women remain terribly naïve about men’s sexual desire.

4 Comments »

1. your words “Women do not experience the spontaneous arousal that men do”

   I must shake my head in wonder as to what women you have spent time with. (or possibley they are VERY, very, young women who have not yet discovered their own sexuallity.) An older woman, say from 30 to 55 are actually easily arroused. A well built man on a beach can absolutely stimulate a woman without knowing him. a womans sexual peak is thirty and beyond. They are quite willing to “act like a whore” in the bedroom and enjoy it, and as well they should, to the fullest. Isn’t it a little egotistical of you to think a beautiful woman is dressing and making up to look beautiful for men? Isn’t it possible it makes HER FEEL beautiful and confident in herself. From a womans view, your story is quite naive.

   Comment by trita51 — June 20, 2010 @ 7:50 pm

2. Dear Friend,

   I am always happy to hear that some women experience spontaneous arousal during sex with a partner. Unfortunately, this is not true for all women. Remember that if we are to encourage women to be more open about sex it is important that we respect other people’s experiences.

   In over 10 years of talking to women about sex I have found very few who are willing to be explicit. I am specifically offering reassurance to women who are familiar with orgasm from masturbation and who would like to experience something similar with a partner. If you are able to help by providing specific details that you think might help other women, then please e-mail me: jane@WaysWomenOrgasm.org.

   I hope that you will appreciate that it is vital that you can do so without insinuating that any woman who does not orgasm automatically during sex with a partner must be sexually inadequate. Please see the contact page under ‘About’ on Ways Women Orgasm for further details about how to do this.

   In case you doubt how common it is for women to have difficulty with orgasm during sex then just take a look at the thousands of articles on the web offering advice on this very topic! Of course, these articles always promise ‘easy orgasm’ just so couples don’t give up trying! There are very few similar articles promising men easy orgasm so I guess they just have to try harder…

   Kind regards, Jane

   Comment by Jane — June 20, 2010 @ 8:55 pm

3. Well, trita51 you got to it before I did. The writer is naive. The basics are this: men like sex and will give affection to get it. Women like affection, and get it during sex. It works out well for both. I believe women enjoy sex as much as men do.

   Comment by samiam849 — June 20, 2010 @ 9:51 pm

4. It takes great courage to be open about our own 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! This all comes with the territory.

   The evidence supporting women’s greater difficulties with arousal compared with men are well documented. I am happy to stand by my stories which have been developed over a ten year research period involving talking to women, experts and reading volumes of information on the specific topic of female arousal and orgasm.

   Comment by Jane — June 20, 2010 @ 10:12 pm

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