And you are so ready to come now, aren’t you? So ready that you are impatient for the instant gratification formula? If you have trouble reaching orgasm, you will learn how to get there more reliably and in less time by reading this chapter. If you want stronger, longer orgasms, you can get those, too, if you really want them.
But the one perfect “instant gratification,” one-size-fits-all formula does continue to elude science and sex advisors. There are a lot of theories—many conflicting—about orgasm, mostly female orgasm. Partly that is because no one set of instructions on how to reach orgasm fits all women (or men) all the time, throughout their lives. Sexual response varies so much from one person or situation to another that no “answer” applies universally.
That said, you will find something here that does it for you. Try on theories and play around with techniques until you find the right combination for you. One thing I can say definitively: The female orgasm is not elusive. It’s right beneath your fingertips.
“Orgasms are electrifying and mysterious. Why do orgasms feel so good? What inhibits them? Do men and women’s orgasms differ? How many kinds are there? Does aging affect orgasm?”
—Helen Fisher, Ph.D., Why We Love
TIP
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Beyond the clitoris and the G-spot, the “new” orgasm trigger may be your cervix—the opening of your uterus. Studies have shown that up to half of women may reach orgasm through repeated thrusting against the cervix. The catch? Unless a man is exceptionally well endowed or the couple is in the right position, his penis isn’t likely to touch her cervix during intercourse. The best position for cervical stimulation is this: She lies on her back with her legs drawn up. This shortens her vaginal canal—giving his penis a better chance of making contact.
Biologically speaking, the answer is simple for his orgasm: procreation. He has an orgasm and ejaculates, sending his sperm out to meet their fate.
But she doesn’t need an orgasm to fertilize her eggs—so why (in the biological sense) does she have them at all?
Until very recently, the prevailing theory was that female orgasm did somehow offer an evolutionary advantage. Scientists assumed a link between orgasm and reproductive success, positing, for example, that orgasm aided fertilization by helping draw sperm up through the cervix and into the uterus. A dissenting opinion was first expressed by anthropologist Donald Symons in 1979. He concluded that female orgasm was simply a by-product of male orgasm (because both sexes develop from a common embryo plan). In other words, orgasm is only possible in women because it’s necessary in men. Scientists didn’t like that. Nor did feminists. (And get used to it: Theories about female orgasm are always put through a politically correct filter.)
Elizabeth Lloyd’s 2006 book The Case of the Female Orgasm is an erudite and enlightened argument against all the adaptive biology theories. Yes, female orgasm is a by-product, she says, and not necessary to the procreation of the species. But the clitoris and sexual pleasure do serve an evolutionary purpose: They encourage women to have sex and thus get pregnant.
In lay terms, an orgasm is generally defined as an intense, pleasurable response to genital stimulation, a release of sexual tension marked by a series of genital contractions and the release throughout the body of natural chemicals that create feelings of euphoria and attachment.
Scientists say it a bit differently:
• “The expulsive discharge of neuromuscular tensions at the peak of sexual response.” –Kinsey, 1953
• “A brief episode of physical release from the vasocongestion and myotonic increment developed in response to sexual stimuli.” –Masters and Johnson, 1966
• “The zenith of sexuoerotic experience that men and women characterize subjectively as voluptuous rapture or ecstasy. It occurs simultaneously in the brain/mind and the pelvic genitalia.” –Money, Wain-wright, and Hingburger, 1991
“The female orgasm is one of the last frontiers of sexuality. In general, the average person knows less about the female orgasm—its causes, frequency, locations—than any other aspect of sex.”
—Lou Paget, American sex expert, The Big O
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There is a type of female orgasm rarely discussed. Betty Dodson in her book Orgasms for Two defines it as a “pressure orgasm.” The orgasm results from indirect stimulation, or “pressure.” to the clitoris and surrounding area. Some women get there by squeezing their legs together as they contract the PC muscle. Others rub back and forth against something hard like a padded headboard or chair arm. And some straddle a folded bath towel and work that back and forth between their legs, again while squeezing the PC.
When a woman is aroused, blood flow increases to the vagina, swelling the inner and outer lips and the clitoris. With enough intense physical and psychological stimulation, she will reach climax, during which the vagina, sphincter, and uterus contract simultaneously, and the blood congested in the vaginal area suddenly rushes back to the rest of the body. And that expulsion of tension and blood flow feels good.
Chemicals released in the brain do the rest of the feel-good work. Endorphins ease pain and elevate the sense of overall well-being. Oxytocin, a sex chemical, encourages those warm feelings of affection for her partner in orgasm. (And no big surprise: Women produce more of the “cuddly chemical” than men do.)
That chemical cocktail is most potent in the early stages of a relationship. It’s called NRE, new relationship energy. Lasting anywhere from eighteen months to three years, NRE propels us into commitment, monogamy, and marriage—life choices we may begin to question when the drug wears off.
Nan Wise, “The Love Coach,” has developed a tool for understanding and managing desire; she calls it the Desire Curve. We all have a Desire Set Point, the level of sexual craving we naturally feel whether in a relationship or not. In a new relationship, the level curves up and plateaus, as noted previously, for up to three years. Wise calls this period New Relationship Euphoria, or NREU. From this long high, we all go back to the Desire Set Point. (In other words, Hot Monogamy is a lie.) And some people dip past the set point into Low Desire Syndrome.
Sexually skilled lovers, however, can manage their Desire Curves by creating peaks in the valleys of their set points. For them, intersecting Desire Curves can rise and fall like waves. Wise calls the ability to do this Operational Intelligence.
“We can’t really explain how arousal feels, what an orgasm is, and the closer we get to one, the less value words have, the less we can use language at all.”
—Sallie Tisdale, Talk Dirty to Me: An Intimate Philosophy of Sex
For many decades, female orgasm was defined as either/or: clitoral or vaginal.
Sigmund Freud labeled clitoral orgasms as “immature” and “neurotic.” The adolescent girl, he explained, experienced clitoral orgasm during masturbation. Once she became sexually active with a partner, she switched to vaginal, or “mature,” orgasms. The first shrink clearly knew little about female anatomy.
In 1953, Alfred Kinsey in his landmark study, Sexual Behavior in the Human Female, said that all female orgasms were achieved by clitoral stimulation, either direct or indirect. His findings were endorsed a decade later by pioneer sex researchers William Masters and Virginia Johnson, who isolated the orgasm in the lab and measured and quantified the process. The clitoral orgasm theory became the prevailing opinion among sex therapists until 1980, when Beverly Whipple and John Perry claimed their research proved the existence of the G-spot, putting the origin for the female orgasm back inside the vagina.
There has not been uniform acceptance of the G-spot theory. The late Helen Singer Kaplan, Ph.D., a pioneer in sex therapy and founder of the nation’s first clinic for sexual disorders, insisted that 75 percent of women do not reach orgasm without some kind of direct clitoral stimulation. Many studies reported in scientific journals have consistently reported that 60 to 75 percent of women do not reach orgasm without clitoral stimulation, with less than 10 percent of women reporting in most studies that they could, in fact, find their G-spots.
What can we learn from all this? Well, Freud was dead wrong. Kinsey and Masters and Johnson did women a great service in promoting the power of the clitoris. And if you can find your G-spot, enjoy it. If you can’t, c’est la vie.
A popular theory among sex authorities now is that women can reach orgasm in a variety of ways. Try them all and see what works for you. But remember: There is no right or wrong way to come.
The orgasm routes are as follows:
The clitoris is rich in nerve endings, with more of them concentrated in that little organ than in the male penis. The clitoris is the only part of the body, male or female, designed purely for pleasure. Yes, the overwhelming majority of women do have clitoral orgasms.
This is the orgasm that every woman seems to want, the product of deep penetration, probably by a larger than average penis. Positions that favor this type of orgasm include the woman on top and rear entry. You are more likely to experience vaginal/cervix orgasm if your clitoris lies deep inside its hood and/or you don’t begin intercourse until you are on the point of orgasm and you use your PC muscle while he’s thrusting.
First, try to reach orgasm with a G-spot vibrator. That will show you where your G-spot is and how much stimulation it needs for orgasm. During intercourse, get into the woman-on-top position and lean back. Experiment with different angles until you feel the G-spot responding. (And play with your clitoris if you aren’t getting what you need from the G-spot.)
Anal play is highly pleasurable for many women (and men), and some women do reach orgasm this way. The secrets to satisfaction? Your lover should spend a lot of time relaxing the anus, via licking and/or inserting well-lubed fingers and gently massaging. Just be sure to use lots of lube! (See more on anal sex in Chapter 10.)
Some women can reach orgasm simply by having their breasts or nipples (or inner thighs or other sensitive areas) stimulated. This is most likely to happen after she has reached already orgasm once via other routes.
Some women say that their best orgasms come when two areas are being stimulated simultaneously, for example, the clitoris and vagina or anus. It’s possible that some orgasms reported as vaginal or anal are really blended. If you’re stroking your clitoris while you’re coming from another form of stimulation, it’s a blended orgasm.
“More easily” usually means that they come during intercourse alone, because almost all women come during masturbation. The ability—or luck—to do so during intercourse is rare enough to qualify as “not the norm,” yet we continue to hold up the model of female orgasm via intercourse alone as the “norm” or “ideal” That isn’t fair to women or to men who blame themselves for not being able to “make” her come.
Theories about why some women orgasm more easily than others usually come down to these two: She has a larger than average clitoris or her clitoris is located deeper inside the clitoral hood, making it more likely that she gets the clitoral stimulation she needs for orgasm during intercourse alone.
From my own extensive interviews of thousands of women over two decades, I believe that location, location, location is the answer. (However, many women who say they have a large or prominent clitoris also say they cannot come during intercourse alone.) Think of the clitoris as real estate you inherited.
“What definition of ‘normal’ could possibly justify labeling two-thirds of women as ‘abnormal’?”
—Elisabeth Lloyd, The Case of the Female Orgasm, challenging the popular (and therapeutically
accepted) belief that the failure to achieve orgasm is a female sexual dysfunction
“Do yourself and him a favor, sister: Fake it. If you are happy and generous-minded, you will fake it and then leap out of bed and make breakfast, squeeze orange juice or pour Champagne, telling him, You are so clever,’ or however you express enthusiasm.”
—Fay Weldon, controversial British feminist author, What Makes Women Happy
The advice to “fake it” may be the common wisdom, but it’s terrible advice. Statistics from women’s magazine surveys to research conduced by university psychology departments report that women do fake orgasm, and in consistently high numbers. Would you believe that 85 percent of women have faked an orgasm at least once in their lives? (And the other 15 percent are either virgins or liars.)
The biggest reason not to fake it is that you’re saying, “Honey, that worked!,” but it didn’t. It won’t work next time, either. Faking may end the sex, but it isn’t going to make you happy.
I am not encouraging you to criticize his technique or blame him for not pleasing you. Ask for what you want and need in the moment, not later. Learn how to have an orgasm. And then make sure you do have them.
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If you’re going to fake it for whatever reason, don’t go over the top. Women who fake typically over-emote. (Apparently even this does fool many men, though.) A more discerning male lover, however, will get suspicious if you shout, scream, gasp, and pant like a porn actress. Take the performance down a notch or two. And afterward, don’t leap out of bed or launch into conversation. Authentic orgasm does leave a woman a little breathless and somewhat speechless for a few or several minutes.
