Sexual pleasure

Self-evidently there are ‘responsible’ aspects of sex as well as the ‘pleasurable’ but sexual ignorance is of no use to anyone.

Young women today are more likely to end up pregnant as a result of pressure from men or from idealised images of motherhood than from any hope of enjoying sexual pleasure. Providing girls with information about their sexuality is an important part of giving women the confidence to stand up for what they want in life.

It may be that a woman’s sex drive is more likely to involve a desire to enjoy family rather than orgasm. But female sexuality can encompass more than this reproductive capacity. Girls need information about how their sexual arousal works if they are to discover how to get the most out of a long-term sexual relationship.

Why would anyone want to discourage women from enjoying sexual pleasure? Unfortunately, many people fear that women always stand to be exploited through sex because men’s arousal and orgasm are so much more easily achieved. Thus sexual pleasure is more usually associated with women facilitating male gratification than with them enjoying their own orgasm.

Lack of understanding about female sexuality means that women are often reluctant to promote the clitoris, either through female masturbation or oral sex, to younger generations. This may explain the custom in some primitive African communities of the surgical removal of a young woman’s clitoris (grossly mis-named ‘female circumcision’) by older women in the tribe.

Although some women do explore sexual pleasure through genital stimulation, there is very little practical sex advice passed on by more experienced women to enable younger women to learn how to go about transferring orgasm techniques to sex.

Sexual pleasure versus reproductive sex

Women can have a low expectation of sex because they lack knowledge about female sexuality. Conversely, if women have the facts about the physical and psychological aspects of their sexuality then at least they are in a position to make personal choices. Sadly young women are not told about the orgasm techniques that women use to orgasm.

When I was in my twenties, I visited my doctor regularly for medication to relieve the discomfort that accompanied vaginal intercourse. I accepted pain as part of my experience of sex because it was implicit that it was unfair to deprive my boyfriend of a sexual outlet. I also assumed that it was my personal failing that I could not naturally enjoy sex as my partner did.

A woman can accept a man’s love-making, regardless of her menstrual cycle. This provides women with more flexibility in attracting and keeping a mate. However, just because we are able to offer intercourse does not mean that we have to. Unfortunately, it may be that men achieve the best sexual satisfaction from thrusting simply because of the biology.

Oral sex or mutual masturbation are both obvious solutions if they work for you. Otherwise, on the basis of a loving relationship, you can offer your partner non-penetrative (outercourse) sex based on his orgasm. This could include allowing him to masturbate himself (depending on your generosity, you could offer to suck him off or masturbate him) while you display yourself provocatively or allowing him to masturbate by riding between your breasts (if large enough!) or your buttocks.

“With my boyfriend of four years, we pretty much stopped fucking, because it just wasn’t working for me, and he doesn’t want me to do it if I don’t like it. He still comes, and I do too, and I don’t have to worry about pregnancy.” (p104 The Hite Reports 1993)

Excerpt from Ways Women Orgasm (ISBN 978-0956-894700)