HomeMen & sex PlayPhysical intimacyWomen who enjoy sexual pleasure

Women who enjoy sexual pleasure

Naturally, some women insist that they are just as sexually driven as men. Even today when pornography dominates 90% of the Internet, women remain incredibly naive about men’s passion for sex.

One woman said: “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.”

Although the sensual pleasures of physical intimacy with a lover can still be enjoyed if orgasm is missing, men would never settle for non-orgasmic sex. Women who are familiar with orgasm from female masturbation also hope for more than affection from sex.

Women, who prior to the 1950s had been thought incapable of sexual pleasure, are now told they can ‘enjoy’ sex as much as men since female orgasm is assumed to occur ‘naturally’ during intercourse.

I have tried to imagine what it must be like for a woman to approach sex without knowing what her own sexual arousal and orgasm feels like. Even so, I have to question how a woman cannot notice a man’s early morning erection. Do they never realise that almost any intimate physical contact causes a man to be eager for sex? There are no female equivalents to these.

Equally presumably they never notice any difference between the pleasure they get from sex compared with their partner. Yet a man’s drive to reach orgasm determines the pace and usually the end of any heterosexual activity. A woman has little say in the matter. In any case, have these women never heard of rape, of prostitution, of men’s use of pornography and masturbation?

Not every man is a potential rapist, has paid for sex or is a sex pervert (e.g. fetishes, peeping tom etc.). But these examples indicate how much more sexually motivated the average man is compared to the average woman. This fact also explains why women (but not men) can hug and kiss each other without anyone assuming that there is a sexual context to the relationship.

It is important to differentiate between what women say and what women do. Women often stand to gain by professing an enthusiasm for sex. This is hardly a modern female ploy: the sexually provocative female has existed since time began.

What is much more indicative of women’s enthusiasm for sex is what women actually do:

  • Men masturbate regularly throughout their lives but very few women ever masturbate to enjoy arousal and orgasm;
  • Men enjoy their own arousal through pornography throughout their lives but even young women buy much less erotica;
  • Our culture abounds with images of women’s bodies but women do not generate a demand for images of men’s bodies;
  • Lap-dancing and pole-dancing bars are directed at men and are seldom (if ever) intended for women; and
  • Prostitutes offer men sex the world over but women very rarely pay for sex.

Many women CLAIM to orgasm during sex just because it makes them look good. The facts of female sexuality have been available since the 1950s: (1) women have more difficulty with sexual arousal and orgasm during sex than men do and (2) women need clitoral stimulation for orgasm so masturbation is a much easier source of female orgasms than intercourse.

It would be more useful to ask older women, who have less to prove, what they think of sex. I have tried talking to women of all ages about sex and the vast majority prefers to make no comment at all. In fact, very few women are shouting from the rooftops about the joys of sexual pleasure. Unfortunately the majority is intimidated by the sexual ego of a tiny minority.

There is little support for providing younger women with information about enjoying their own sexual pleasure. My efforts meet with defensiveness, silence or fierce opposition. Many people insist that women can ‘enjoy’ sex as much as men do but it is not clear that they are talking about orgasm. Women themselves are rarely able to explain how they orgasm during sex.

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