Jane’s slides on ‘Relationship Sex’ help explain female arousal.
The very first time I had sex, I knew that something was up. I felt absolutely nothing. I just lay there wondering what was going on until my partner had finished. I concluded the whole thing was a hoax. But because of the ignorance in our society, the fabrication continued: the bravado of adults in everyday life, the compelling portrayals and accounts of orgasmic women. I continued to doubt the bravado but I didn’t have time to figure it all out.
I had been interested in eroticism since teenage years. I wanted to understand what was wrong so I could put it right. When I tried to find answers from sex manuals or therapists, I was advised that I should naturally respond to the physical and erotic stimuli of sexual activity just as men do. I was embarrassed in the beginning because I assumed that I must be missing something very obvious. There was no one who ever hinted at an issue for women. Shere Hite provided the one and only reference to women having the same experience that I had had. Finally, when I had time, I decided to ask women I knew about these orgasms, men think women should have.
What motivated me was the huge discrepancy between my experience and the way women’s sexuality is promoted in society. Even today, men are much more likely to contribute to a thinking discussion of sexuality than women ever are. Very few women are willing to comment at all. Women’s idea of orgasm has nothing to do with enjoying eroticism or sexual fantasy. So they cannot contribute to a discussion about appreciating and responding to eroticism. In the end, I suspect that men will be core to understanding women’s sexuality simply because so few women ever experience orgasm.
Most people, who suggest that women orgasm with a lover, are willing to agree that only some women can achieve this feat. They do this as a way of ignoring the evidence of millions of other women. The inference is that a few select women are specially endowed somehow. The problem with this assertion (apart from the fact that it is incorrect) is that millions of women in the population are made to feel sexually inadequate for no legitimate reason.
No one dares to ask women, who think they orgasm with a lover, to explain how they manage this amazing feat. Women insist on personal privacy as a way of ensuring they never need to provide convincing evidence that they understand what an orgasm is. They accuse men of being perverts for enjoying the details, which prevents men discovering that women have no idea what they are talking about. Even as a woman, I have also been accused of being a pervert for asking for explicit explanations for female orgasm.
It is not a perversion for men to enjoy their own arousal. Arousal is a natural sexual response that is a prerequisite for orgasm. A woman would understand this if she knew what orgasm involves. Women’s orgasm claims are not nearly explicit enough to cause anyone’s arousal. Men are just looking for emotional reassurance. Most men will support any woman who hints of having an erotic response with a lover. One woman who blogs about orgasm asked me to pay her $25 an hour (plus expenses) just to have a casual conversation. I’m not even looking for turn-ons, just honesty. In decades of talking about orgasm, for the most part there is just a resounding silence.
When I talked to so-called experts, they confidently quoted their textbook theories. But they were incapable of engaging in any logical discussion of the facts. Of course there are men who are happy to eulogise about the orgasms they believe their partners have. But they can’t explain them in logical terms any more than women can. No one seems to see a problem in defining female sexuality according to phenomena that no one can discuss in any detail, let alone with the backing of some facts, logic and research findings.
I have never had an orgasm with a lover but I have always worked with my partner to ensure that our sex life fulfilled his needs. I resent women who suggest that boasting about orgasm is all that is required or men who expect women to fake orgasm to satisfy their ego. It’s easy to boast about orgasm but women’s behaviours are incompatible with enjoying sexual pleasure. Women refuse to answer, they are angry or embarrassed to be asked such personal questions. There are no research findings that prove that women orgasm with a lover. The research indicates that female orgasm is associated with clitoral stimulation during solitary masturbatory activity. The belief that a woman should orgasm with a lover is simply an assumption. And it’s wrong!
No one recognises the truth when they hear it. They imply that your experiences cannot be. Orgasm is a unique experience and I am grateful for the pleasure I have enjoyed through masturbation. I back up my work with an explicit account of my experience for the benefit of women who are interested (and any men who can cope with such honesty). I explain the specific erotic and physical stimuli that I have found orgasm depends on.
When I question the feasibility of the orgasms women think they have, they are evidently used to having their claims accepted verbatim. This is wrong. No scientist should be sold on the claims of a few subjects who have so much to gain from promoting fantasies. Orgasm is a response of the human body. Stimulation must continue up until orgasm (not beyond). A person must control that stimulation (i.e. not intercourse for a woman). Orgasm occurs when the brain responds to eroticism by sending blood to the phallus. The phallus is stimulated directly (not through the vagina or the testicles). Men know these facts but most women have no idea how orgasm is achieved. If women experienced sexual pleasure, they would talk about it unashamedly.
Women can use sex to get what they want. Men cannot, as sex is what they want. (BBC blog)
Excerpt from Learn About Sexuality (ISBN 978-0956-894748)