One in 20 women have never orgasmed with a sexual partner
By Almara Abgarian
If you thought the orgasm gap was a thing of the past, we are sadly here to tell you that this is not the case.
A new study from the sex toy company Lelo has revealed that men are still climaxing more often than women during sex, 66% compared to 43% respectively.
What’s more, almost one in 20 women have never orgasmed with a sexual partner.
The findings, which have been released for National Orgasm Day (that’s today) are the result of a survey with 4,000 heterosexual female and male participants from across the UK.
To make matters worse, not only do women climax less, but it appears many of their male partners are unaware that this is even happening, with majority of participants in relationships saying their partner orgasms 60% of the time.
This is still quite a low figure – but this could partially be due to some women not being physically able to climate during sex, rather than lack of trying by their partner.
More likely however, this is due to the orgasm gap.
What is the orgasm gap?
‘The orgasm gap refers to the stats that show that in heterosexual sexual experiences men orgasm more than women,’ explains Kate Moyle, sex and relationships expert at Lelo.
‘We also see that this gap doesn’t exist when women are having sexual experiences with women, which suggests that the gap is gendered.’
Kate explains that this is due to a variety of factors, such as lack of education, cultural differences and the fact that many people focus on intercourse to reach climax, where majority of women require clitoral stimulation to get off.
But why is the clitoris so often forgotten or ignored?
‘This is reinforced by what we see represented in many forms of sex online and in the media, where women appear to be orgasming from penetrative sex with little or no arousal,’ she says.
‘Commonly we also split up foreplay and sex, which puts the focus on “sex” as the main event, when if we reframe and think of it all as sex where the goal is pleasure then the clitoris, which is the main source of female pleasure with 8000 nerve endings would get more attention.
‘It’s not all about taking the focus off penetration, but ensuring that people are aware then when women are aroused, the clitoris becomes erect like the penis, and this means the internal structure can be stimulated and can create pleasurable sensations through intercourses, but arousal and being turned on is the key.’
‘The side effect of this lack of sex education is few of us feel confident with sexual communication, and being open about what feels good for us, and this is one of the key routes to creating change.’
Additional research by Lelo revealed three in 10 people fake their orgasms on a regular basis, with women more likely to do so, according to the study.
And only a third of those surveyed have spoken to their partner about their orgasms, or rather lack of orgasms – with men (73%) more likely to raise the issue, compared to women (56%).
If you’re missing out on orgasms, it’s time to speak up.
Gratitude practices are all the rage these days, and for good reason. Research continues to unearth more and more benefits of gratitude, from relieving stress to improving sleep. The latest addition to the list? Better sex among couples.
A recent study published in the Social Psychological and Personality Science journal found that the more people experience and receive gratitude in their relationships, the more likely they are to be invested in their partner’s sexual pleasure—leading to more mutual sexual satisfaction overall.
What makes us motivated to meet each other’s needs?
A team of researchers wanted to see if gratitude could improve something called sexual communal strength, which is the degree to which a person is motivated to meet their partner’s sexual needs. People high in sexual communal strength genuinely care about their partner’s pleasure and meeting their partner’s needs, and past research has shown folks with higher sexual communal strength tend to have happier relationships and more sexually satisfying ones. Some studies have even found people with higher sexual communal strength tend to have more sexual desire in general and an easier time getting aroused.
So, how do you increase this coveted quality of sexual communal strength? The researchers’ theory: more gratitude.
The team—including psychologists Ashlyn Brady, Levi R. Baker, Amy Muise, and Emily Impett—tested this theory out over the course of three separate studies.
In one study, the researchers surveyed 185 people in relationships about their sexual communal strength, their experiences of gratitude toward their partner, and the expressions of gratitude they received from their partner. Lo and behold, people who’d had more gratitude in the relationship (both felt and received) tended to have more sexual communal strength.
In another study, they had 118 couples track these gratitude experiences and their levels of sexual communal strength over the course of three months. As the researchers periodically checked in with the couples, they found both experiencing and receiving gratitude was associated with improvements in sexual communal strength over time.
In a third study, they wanted to see if gratitude would cause an increase in sexual communal strength (as opposed to just correlation). So they asked 203 people in relationships to journal about one of four things: a recent experience of having gratitude for their partner, a recent experience of receiving gratitude from their partner, a recent enjoyable experience that had nothing to do with their partner, or a recent neutral experience related to their partner. After the writing exercise, everybody was surveyed about their sexual communal strength—and once again, those who’d journaled about a gratitude experience (whether giving or receiving) reported higher communal strength than the folks who journaled about other things.
If gratitude helps boost sexual communal strength, and sexual communal strength boosts both partners’ sexual satisfaction, then it’s reasonable to assume gratitude could be a key ingredient to mutually satisfying sex in a relationship.
“Gratitude is a positively valenced emotion that arises in response to the recognition that another person has been beneficial or valuable to them,” Brady and her colleagues write in the paper on their findings. “Gratitude functions to motivate people to maintain relationships with valuable others. The current studies extend this growing body of literature to the sexual domain by revealing that gratitude similarly motivates people to meet their partner’s sexual needs.”
The takeaway? Couples working on improving their sex life might benefit from adopting a regular gratitude practice, including both individually journaling about why they’re grateful for each other and sharing that appreciation for each other openly. (Now, of course, this only works if this gratitude is authentic and without ulterior motives. And likewise, our motivation to support each other’s pleasure must come out of authentic enthusiasm and not pressure.)
When we’re grateful for our relationship, we’re naturally more enthusiastic about doing all the things that keep it healthy and strong—such as having a good sex life. We pay more attention to our partner’s sexual needs and care more about meeting them, and we find ourselves feeling more sexually fulfilled in the process.
You can increase your sex drive by reducing stress levels, gaining a better understanding of what turns you on, letting go of performance anxiety, and reducing negative anticipation among other methods.
Getting enough sleep could also increase your desire for sex since sleep quality can influence libido.
You could also try talking to a therapist since this can help you address issues like shame surrounding sex, body image, or trauma.
Media and societal norms lead people to believe that they should be ready to have sex at any given moment. While this is the experience of some people, it certainly isn’t the case for everybody.If you’re looking to increase your sex drive, there are a few things you can do to boost your desire. Here is what the research says.
There is no such this as a normal sex drive
Everyone’s libido is different, and the same person’s sex drive might fluctuate over time, depending on circumstances. This is normal. According to sexologist and sexuality counselor Jess O’Reilly, Human Sexuality PhD and host of the Sex With Dr. Jess Podcast, there’s no universal standard or rule of thumb when it comes to sexual desire.
“Low desire is only a problem if you deem it one or you find it distressful. Some people want sex several times per day and others don’t want it at all, and all experiences can be perfectly healthy,” says O’Reilly.
However, if you do find your lack of sexual desire distressing and you want to be more interested in sex, O’Reilly recommends looking at whether your libido is low due to lifestyle or relational factors, which could range from trouble communicating with eachother, lacking emotional connection, or dealing with existing conflicts such as fighting over money or kids.
Reduce stress levels
Stress can cause various physical symptoms including a lower libido.
O’Reilly says your levels of cortisol — commonly referred to as the stress hormone — rise when you’re stressed out, and this can interfere with your sexual desire and arousal. A 2018 survey conducted by the BBC found that 45% of respondents said that stress negatively affected their sex drive.
However, learning to reduce or manage stress can be difficult. Don’t be afraid to ask for help and support, whether it’s from your partner or a therapist. You can also try stress-relieving activities, such as meditation or exercise. Mindfulness has also proven to help improve sexual desire and sexual functioning, especially in women.
Understand arousal and learn what turns you on
For many people, the desire for sex isn’t there 24/7. “Desire does not always occur spontaneously. Most people need to get aroused first, and then they might experience desire. If you sit around waiting for sexual desire to occur on its own, it simply may not happen,” says O’Reilly.
There are plenty of ways you can ramp up arousal, and thus, desire. Try some of the following:
Fantasizing
Sexting
Watching porn
Reading erotic stories
Touching yourself
Experimenting with sex toys
Having your partner kiss and touch you without the expectation of sex
Listening to erotica
Enjoying music that feels sexual to you
Get creative and experiment with what turns you on most and increases your desire. O’Reilly says that once you’re aroused, it’s much more likely that desire for sex will follow.
Expanding your definition of what sex means can also be helpful. If you are not excited by the type of sex you have been engaged in, trying something new can be exciting.
Let go of performance anxiety
Performance anxiety, pressure, and stress surrounding sex is likely to curb your arousal and your desire. “Pressure is the antithesis to pleasure, so if you feel pressure to have sex in a certain way, look a certain way, have an orgasm, get hard, get wet, make specific sounds or want sex with a specific frequency, you may find that you lose interest altogether,” says O’Reilly.
Take time out to really get to know yourself sexually. O’Reilly says that spending time better understanding your body’s unique responses through masturbation can help you to be more at ease when you’re with a partner. She also highly recommends using mindfulness during masturbation, and mindfulness in general, which will result in benefits in partnered sex.
Practicing mindfulness has been studied with great results in regards to libido. A 2014 study published in Behaviour Research and Therapy examined 117 women who struggled with low desire. After mindfulness training, there was a significant decrease in “sex-related distress.”
With practice, mindfulness can help you stay in the moment, enjoy pleasure, and let performance anxiety roll off your back. Talking to a therapist or opening up to your partner about your performance anxiety can also be helpful.
Get enough sleep
Sleep affects many aspects of your health and behavior, including your sex drive. A 2019 study published in the Journal of Sexual Medicine found that lack of quality sleep is correlated to low libido, as well as difficulty orgasming in women.
O’Reilly says exhaustion can lead to lack of desire for sex.In this case, you should be prioritizing sleep over sex. Once you take care of your sleep habits, you may notice a difference in your libido, according to O’Reilly.
Address relationship dissatisfaction
When you’re in a relationship and you’re experiencing issues with your partner, it’s likely that those problems will spill over into the bedroom and leave one or both of you less likely to want sex.
“If you’re harboring resentment, dealing with a partner who doesn’t want to engage, struggling with ongoing conflict, recovering from hurt and trauma, it’s unlikely that you’ll want sex spontaneously,” says O’Reilly.
It’s best to work on these issues with your partner rather than sweep them under the rug and hope they go away. O’Reilly suggests talking about underlying sources or tension, and being open about issues. You can do this alone with your partner or with the help of a couples’ therapist.
Reduce Negative Anticipation
You might not be looking forward to sex if you are worried about potential or actual negative consequences.
If you don’t want to get pregnant or are worried about STIs, use barrier methods such as condoms and hormonal birth control. Be sure to have conversations with any partner about your comforts and concerns.
Some people also experience unwanted pain with sex. This is not something to be excited about. Ask your doctor about any pain or discomfort you experience.
If you regularly have issues with reliable erections and control over orgasms, you might be worried about sex being pleasurable for you and your partner. Make an appointment with a urologist if you have any issues with erections or orgasms.
Talk to a therapist
Talking to a general therapist or a sex therapist can help you deal with underlying psychological reasons that you might be experiencing low sex drive. O’Reilly says this can be particularly helpful if you’re dealing with shame surrounding sex, body image, or trauma.
There is nothing to be embarrassed or ashamed about regarding sex or seeking therapy to help with your sex life. This can be a way to examine the sources of your distress. If there is an underlying psychological cause, then simply trying to boost your libido probably won’t help. You need to address the fundamental issue at hand, first.
Try out these tips to give your libido a boost and you’ll be on your way to wanting – and enjoying – sex again.
They say the mind is the biggest, most powerful sex organ in the body. But, uh, don’t try visualizing that mental image too vividly or literally, unless you’re into that sorta thing?
Instead, imagine your favorite fictional crush pressing you up against a wall, or think back to the hottest sex you ever had in your life. Now stop imagining, because this magical place where all your desires are possible and acceptable exists. And literally anyone can tap into it.
While sexual fantasies are by definition not “real,” their effects on your sex life (especially when explored during masturbation) are — shall we say — palpably physical.
“Engaging your imagination rather than relying on visual porn for example helps to build, enhance and strengthen your erotic mind,” said Dr. Britney Blair, co-founder and Chief Science Officer of the sexual wellness Lover app. “You can bring that imagination to life when you want to prime the pump on your desire or push yourself over the edge to climax while solo or with a partner.”
“It’s incredibly liberating, recognizing our own power to design the scenes and situations that turn us on.”
To be clear, there’s nothing wrong with porn or other forms of erotica. But there’s something especially powerful in orgasming to smut that couldn’t be more personally tailored to what you like.
“In our minds we’re not confined to our studio apartments or our current sexual partners. There are no rules or judgments. Not even the laws of physics apply,” said Gina Gutierrez, co-founder of the popular audio erotica app Dipsea. “It’s incredibly liberating, recognizing our own power to design the scenes and situations that turn us on and to scrap the ones that don’t work for us.”
Don’t take our word for it, though. There’s science to show exactly how real the effects of a healthy erotic imagination are.
“The mind is really the recipient of all the body’s sensations. So there’s this empirical evidence of a huge connection between the mind and pleasure,” she said.
While everyone can benefit from using their imagination as a sexual aid, it’s an especially potent practice for women and others who society has conditioned to feel ashamed about their sexuality.
“We have to do more work to lay down the connections, the neural pathways, between the genitals and the brain’s sensory reward regions,” said Wise. “Using your imagination to masturbate not only gives us the information about what stimulation we need, but also actually strengthens the connections between our genitals and the brain.”
Beyond that, getting off to our own sexual fantasies tackles another negative effect that patriarchy can have on women’s sexuality.
“We’re socialized to think of ourselves as the objects of other people’s desires, like we need to borrow someone else’s idea of pleasure” said Wise. That’s why learning how to be the subject of our own desires, to embody the pleasure we conjure up in our own mind, can be so empowering.
Everyone with a brain, genitals, and desire is already equipped to masturbate to their own sexual fantasies. And while the practice does come more naturally to some, it only takes little guidance and patience to unlock the endless possibilities tucked inside your erotic mind.
Set the right environment
A major key in setting your mind up for erotic success is to ensure your environment allows your brain to feel fully relaxed, safe, and free from distraction.
Pick a time and place where you’ll have full privacy without needing to worry about any interruption, whether from roommates or notifications. For most people, that place will naturally be the bedroom. But put some effort into also making it a true fortress of sensual solitude, like by locking the door, setting your phone to airplane mode, putting on an eye mask, or maybe even using some essential oils and putting on your favorite sexy playlist.
Blair even recommends purposefully scheduling these more exploratory kind of session and making them habitual. So maybe it can be something you add to your nightly ritual before bed: Brush your teeth, do the skincare routine, put on some pajamas, then let your mind wander as you touch yourself.
Create a safe space in your mind
Of course, priming yourself with the right mindset is vital to unlocking your brain’s full fantasy potential.
One of the biggest hurdles to exploring our erotic imaginations is actually the engrained social shame many of us have picked up (even subconsciously) through sexism, homophobia, social stigmas, religion, etc.
“It’s important to know if that is coming up for you, you’re not alone. But there is no such thing as a wrong or right fantasy.” said Blair.
Treat your imagination as a judgement-free zone. To be fair, clearing or redirecting your mind away from feelings of shame is easier said than done. But certain exercises can help (which we’ll get into more in the mind-body connection section below).
Blair suggests that, while exploring sexual fantasies in your mind, try to distinguish between when you’re having a reaction versus a judgment to a certain scenario. Judgments often come from values imposed on you by something or someone else, while visceral reactions can be an indication that your mind wants to explore it further — especially if it’s something your never thought you’d be into.
It’s easy to get scared off by an intense response to a fantasy, and write that off as being too weird or outside the norm for your taste. But if you give yourself a second to assess where that response is coming from, you might actually find that the intensity comes from a part of you that you’ve never tried tapping into before.
“Everything is okay in the world of fantasy. No fantasy is a crime.”
Or maybe not, and that’s fine too. The point is, if you feel safe doing it, just try leaning into parts of your erotic mind that feel challenging and see where it goes.
“Everything is okay in the world of fantasy. No fantasy is a crime,” said Blair. “Whatever turns you on in your mind is totally healthy. Your fantasy doesn’t say anything about you except that you are lucky to have a rich imagination that you can use to have an exciting and enduring erotic life.”
That’s another major benefit of sexual fantasies versus traditional porn, too. You don’t have to worry about any ethical concerns, because your imagination can’t hurt you or anyone else. You’re in total control.
“You imagination is a completely safe space,” said Dipsea’s Gutierrez. “We can play out fantasies that are risky or illicit that we would never actually want to happen in real life. In our minds we’re free to experiment without consequences.”
Familiarize yourself with (but don’t feel limited by) common sexual fantasies
While the whole point is to tap into the unique potential of your own mind, a good jumping off point is to explore whether the most common sexual fantasies spark your interest. Researchers have labeled them into different categories, though there’s a world of possibilities within those labels as well.
Dr. Blair described these categories as multi-partner sex like group sex or threesomes; power, control, or rough sex; novelty, adventure, and variety; taboo and forbidden sex; partner sharing and non-monogamous relationships; passion and romance; and erotic flexibility like homoeroticism or gender-bending.
Jess O’Reilly is a sex educator, author of The New Sex Bible, and Astroglide’s resident sexologist. She explained that through each of these fantasy categories you can help identify the specific core erotic feelings that get you into a heightened state of arousal.
“Oftentimes, they relate to fantasy, escapism or subverting otherwise ‘negative’ emotions. You might find that sex is really hot when you feel powerful, submissive, challenged, mindful, or playful,” she said. “You may also find yourself aroused by feelings that you don’t naturally associate with pleasure, like jealousy, inadequacy, fear, and even humiliation can be exciting.”
What our brains often gravitate to most is pure novelty. What gets you off in a fantasy can actually be the total opposite of your real-life sexual orientation or even completely removed from you, as an abstract scenario happening to someone else entirely.
So don’t be weirded out if you learn that you’re as horny for that fish-god monster from The Shape of Water as the Academy Awards were in 2018. Or maybe you’re one of the many women who enjoys a rape fantasy — which, as Dr. Wise points out, in a fantasy context is the opposite of a real-life rape since, “you’re choosing to have the fantasy and who’s overpowering you. You’re in complete control.”
One other general rule of thumb Wise found is that while men tend toward more visually-oriented fantasies centered around preferred body parts, women tend to focus on overall scenarios. However, it’s impossible to distill the endless possibilities of human sexuality into neat categories. Which is why you also shouldn’t get discouraged or ashamed if none of these common fantasies do it for you.
“Our capacity for imagination is limitless,” said Wise. Don’t feel pressure to confine yours to a specific label.
Start building your erotic imagination through fiction, porn, memories… anything!
The truth is that, while other obstacles might make it hard initially to give yourself permission to explore sexual fantasies, using your imagination is a very natural and innate part of being human. Who doesn’t fantasizing about getting up from their desk in the middle of a hard work day and quitting, or spend time daydreaming about how they’d furnish their dream apartment?
“We make Pinterest boards and save Instagram photos, collect and catalog all these things that we like. I recommend starting to do that for your sex life,” said Gutierrez. “Become more mindful observing what attracts you to someone. The moments where you feel sexiest. What you want to say out loud during sex but hesitate to. Then the next time you want to use your fantasy for pleasure, you know exactly where to draw from.”
Everything in your life can become part of your horny mood board.
Everything in your life can become part of your horny mood board.
We all have that one fictional character or public figure — whether from books, tv, movies, video games, or even politics and the internet — that just does it for us. Begin there, expanding into a specific sexy scene that got you going or whatever comes to mind when you think of that person. Heck, maybe you’re like me and realize that a silky, authoritative voice is actually your kink, leading a bunch of non-erotic popular podcasts to become your go-to spank bank material.
Audio erotica can be a great place to start if you don’t want to take the training wheels off yet to explore sexual fantasies of your own making. Unlike visual porn, audio erotica still exercises the muscles of your erotic imagination, asking you to fill in the details and paint the full picture. While we always recommend Dipsea, there’s also plenty of free ways to try audio erotica like r/gonewildaudio and Girl on the Net.
Once you’re ready to bring yourself more to the forefront of the fantasy, begin with a memory of the hottest, most visceral sex you’ve ever had. Really ground yourself back in that moment by recalling your senses: What position were you in? What did the person’s lust feel like? Were you sweating? How exactly did they touch you?
Touch yourself while pulling from all the erotic mental material you’ve curated, and don’t be afraid to really get your whole body involved in mimicking the sensations you’re creating through your mind. Maybe that means masturbating while you’re on all fours, or matching the tempo of the fantasy, or even dry-humping a pillow. Don’t put any pressure on yourself to orgasm throughout any of this, though, and instead just zero in on embodying the experience of your imagination.
“It’s about giving yourself full permission to explore all our internal pleasure places, and how we experience them in both our minds and bodies at the same time,” said Wise.
Try these exercises to strengthen your mind-body connection
Through her research and other studies in the field, Wise has ultimately found that, “This distinction we make between the mind and body is really a very arbitrary one.”
One of the best ways to embrace this in a way that engages your erotic fantasy life in is through something called mindful sex.
This increasingly popular branch of sex therapy describes a bunch of different practices and exercises that add a layer of sexuality to mindfulness, to help you stay present in your body while experiencing pleasure, train your mind to focus on whatever arouses you, and engage in a non-judgmental curious sexual mindset. Try out basic exercises like pleasure mapping (which Dipsea has a guide for), mindful masturbation (which you can read about here), and sensate focus (which you can read about here).
Wise also suggests a very simple exercise for getting your imagination more connected with your genitals on a neurological level: Just start by tapping or pleasurably touching your genitals, then stop, then think back on the sensations you felt while touching them. Try to recall and summon them back in your body: What did it feel like in your body when the stimulation was building, then dissipating?
At first, it might not feel like much at all and the pleasure may be pretty mild compared to what you’re used to while using more immediate erotic visual aids like porn.
“But you’ll slowly start to develop a better connection to that pleasure sensation channel in your brain,” she said.
Use your imagination during partnered sex
While sexual fantasies are a great way to enhance self-love, learning how to engage with them during partnered sex can also do wonders to get people over the edge and into orgasm.
At this point though, you might be wondering: Is it even OK to fantasize about other situations — or maybe even other people — while having sex with a partner?
“It doesn’t matter where you get your appetite, as long as you’d come home to eat.”
“Yes, it’s an unequivocal yes! Because thinking about stuff is not the same as doing it,” said Wise. As the famous saying goes, “It doesn’t matter where you get your appetite, as long as you’d come home to eat.”
It’s totally normal for your mind to desire novelty, especially if you’re not in a new relationship anymore. In fact, Wise found that one of the best ways to ensure a couples’ longevity is precisely this kind of openness and understanding that people need to fuel their erotic imagination with new stuff.
“If we can get over these kind of hang ups, get past this fear of our partners having a fantasy about somebody else while they’re with us, and instead use it as an opportunity talk about: What would you like? What haven’t we tried? What are you afraid to tell me? Because that’s hot. That’s really hot,” said Wise.
Or maybe instead of thinking about someone else, you’d simply rather use your imagination during partnered sex to transport you both to a setting or scenario that heightens your arousal even more.
In the end, what you do with your erotic imagination is up to you. You can share it if you’d like — or keep it all to yourself. That’s what’s so great about sexual fantasies you cut from your own cloth: They’re all yours, and no one else’s.
While the history of women and pleasure is fraught with stigma, it appears we’re in the midst of a pleasure revolution. Now, female-identifying founders are creating pornography, sex toys, sex-education platforms, and erotica, all of which normalizes and celebrates a woman’s right to get off. Not only are consumers turned on by this building movement—the global sex toy market alone is expected to be worth $35 billion by 2023, up from $23.7 billion in 2017—but investors, too, are shuttling millions of dollars into sexual wellness start-ups such as Dipsea, a sexy short-story app, and Unbound, an e-tailer selling sex toys and other bedroom accessories. In short, there’s never been a better time than now for having a vulva and loving to orgasm.
So how did we get to this place of openness when, just two decades ago, Samantha Jones’ unapologetic pursuit of big Os on Sex and the City was considered radical? While there have been many twists and turns throughout the history of women and pleasure, it can be argued that the modern movement’s roots first planted in the 1950s. Back then, attitudes toward sexuality were still, in many ways, informed by the repressive Victorian era—when society demanded a “don’t ask, don’t tell” attitude toward female desire. Yet in 1953, sexologist and biologist Alfred C. Kinsey, PhD, published his landmark (and controversial) book titled Sexual Behavior in the Human Female, which shed light on women’s then-rarely discussed habits regarding masturbation, orgasms, and sex before marriage. (Spoiler alert: Among the 6,000 women interviewed for the book, all of those activities were highly popular.) From there, the world slowly but surely opened its eyes to women as sexual beings.
The early history of women and pleasure
Four years following the release of Dr. Kinsey’s book, William Masters and Virginia Johnson began their pioneering work on the physical mechanisms behind sexual arousal at Washington University in St. Louis. Their most groundbreaking findings are still frequently cited today, like the four stages of sexual arousal—excitement, plateau, orgasm, and resolution—and the idea that women are able to have multiple orgasms. “Even the very suggestion that sexual pleasure might be important for women and not just men was massively radical during those times,” says Zhana Vrangalova, PhD, professor of human sexuality at New York University and resident sexpert for sex-toy brand Lelo.
As the history of women and pleasure progressed, a succession of cultural milestones continued to help champion the idea of non-procreative sex among women. First, the birth control pill hit the market in 1960, which officially allowed women to have sex without the prospect of pregnancy. Helen Gurley Brown’s book Sex and the Single Girl (1962) gave advice for sex and dating as an unmarried woman, and a group of Boston women later self-published the seminal Our Bodies, Ourselves (1970), which provided evidence-based information to teach women about their sexual anatomy. Then as the hippie counterculture spread a message of free love, leaders of the second-wave feminist movement encouraged women to take an active role in their own sexual experience. You know, like men had been doing for centuries beforehand.
Despite all of this progress, however, Dr. Vrangalova points out that the framework for female pleasure in the 1960s and early ’70s was still largely based on a male perspective. “Given that the ’60s were a time when women were still very much second-class citizens, the way sexual pleasure was conceptualized was the way men, rather than women, thought about pleasure,” she says. “There’s no doubt women participated, but it seems like they adopted the male-driven vision of sexual pleasure, rather than focusing specifically on female pleasure. This was an inevitable product of the times—even scientists across diverse fields believed that whatever findings were true of men were also true of women, more or less.” For instance, at this point in the history of women and pleasure, there was still a pervasive view that women, like men, should be able to reach orgasm through vaginal intercourse alone.
“The ’60s were a time when women were still very much second-class citizens, and the way sexual pleasure was conceptualized was the way men, rather than women, thought about pleasure.”
—sexologist Zhana Vrangalova, PhD
But soon after, new discoveries around women’s pleasure began to cool off, a phenomenon that Dr. Vrangalova attributes to the early days of the HIV/AIDS crisis. “Unfortunately, that swung the pendulum on sexual pleasure—male and female—back toward the more conservative end of the spectrum, and America entered the Dark Ages of abstinence-only sexual education,” she says. “This had the incredibly harmful effects of sexually crippling an entire generation of Americans with lack of information, increasing fear of sex and STIs, and increasing stigma around pleasure, especially if it was outside of long-term committed relationships.”
Women are sexual beings, but there’s a pleasure gap to close and stigma to stop
Fast-forward a decade, however, and pleasure once again started to creep back into the zeitgeist. But even in 1999, when Sex and the City was must-watch viewing, 40 percent of women still claimed to experience sexual disfunction, characterized by a lack of sexual desire and difficulty attaining arousal.
According to public-health researcher Katherine Rowland‘s new book, The Pleasure Gap, this feeling of sexual dissatisfaction still endures, despite all the strides that have been made during the past 60-plus years. “Among the women who I spoke to, the persistent low desire was heavily associated with the idea that sex should revolve around penetration as the main course, with maybe a polite prelude of a foreplay, rather than thinking about sex as a broader universe of intimacy,” Rowland previously told NPR. “It’s the combination of a larger culture that privileges male sexuality over women’s, a culture that doesn’t teach women that pleasure belongs to them. A lack of anatomical self-knowledge. And feelings of sort of persistent danger and women being often censored and censured for expressing their desire.”
Yet on all of these fronts, the tides have been slowly turning in recent years, thanks in large part to the rise of the digital age. “The internet and smartphones enabled unprecedented access to vast amounts of sexual pleasure information and to all sorts of alternative and more liberal sexual values and lifestyles,” says Dr. Vrangalova, who notes that online porn and erotica helped to normalize the concept of “a women’s right to pleasure.”
Furthermore, the #MeToo movement of 2017 set the stage for the current pleasure revolution. “There are a lot of women who relived their traumas during #MeToo…it wasn’t a linear path,” says Alexandra Fine, sexologist and CEO of next-gen vibrator company Dame. “But it does ultimately feel like it empowered women to reclaim their sexual pleasure as their own and to speak more openly about it.”
It’s that open dialogue around sex that’s leading women to get curious about their own pleasure patterns right now—and that’s clearing a path for companies to create products and services that help them get to know their own bodies. “[At Dame,] we’re hearing so many stories of women being really honest about what their sexual experiences are in an unfiltered way that wasn’t available before,” Fine adds.
What to expect from the next chapter in the history of women and pleasure
As knowledge gaps continue to emerge around women’s sexual pleasure, organizations like Allbodies—a digital sex-ed platform—are stepping up to fill them. Allbodies co-founder and doula Ash Spivak says there are still many vulva-owners who feel alienated by conventional pleasure wisdom, either because they’ve previously experienced trauma or by virtue of the fact that everyone’s body works differently. “We have so much emphasis on orgasms in general as being the pinnacle, but pleasure is a spectrum,” she says. “There’s so much room in there to really play around and that’s really never been taught.”
“We have so much emphasis on orgasms in general as being the pinnacle, but pleasure is a spectrum. There’s so much room in there to really play around and that’s really never been taught.”
—Ash Spivak, Allbodies co-founder
There are also plenty of institutions that aren’t yet ready for an open dialogue around female arousal at this point in the history of women and pleasure. For instance, Facebook still doesn’t allow advertising for sex toys—although it does allow ads for sexual-health companies, like those promoting erectile-disfunction treatments for men. And Fine says targeting this is the next frontier of the pleasure revolution.
“This conversation around advertising policy is a really interesting place where it’s showing up,” she says, noting that Dame sued the New York City MTA in 2019 for refusing to run its vibrator ads in the subway. Changing this reality is part of her bigger mission for Dame. “If we can’t have public discourse around sexuality because we think it’s inherently inappropriate, then we’re pushing sex to the shadows. And the things that happen in the shadows when it comes to sex harm women.”
Fortunately, research is continuing to unveil nuances of the female sexual experience, which can only help to erase shame and popularize the idea that there’s no one-size-fits-all path to pleasure. One 2019 study, for instance, debunked the idea that all orgasms are positive experiences—some women do, indeed, view them as negative at times, particularly when they feel coerced into having sex or pressured into climaxing.
Brands are even contributing to our collective knowledge. Dame, for instance, asks members of its Dame Labs community to test its prototypes pre-launch and then uses feedback to fine-tune each product. For instance, Dame engineers were surprised to learn when developing the company’s first internal vibrator, the Arc, that testers considered the toy’s external sensations to be even more important than its internal stimulation properties—even though testers said they would purchase the toy to use internally. The engineers edited the design accordingly, and as a result, pleasure won.
And while pleasure is a right entitled to all people, vulva-owners certainly included, Fine, for one, believes there are even bigger health gains to to glean from knowing as much as possible about the female sexual experience. “I really believe that sex is part of our wellness—it’s literally what creates our life,” she says. ‘Why would we think it’s not constantly impacting [us]?”
Couples Who Regularly Show Physical Affection Have Happier Relationships
by John Anderer
Cuddling, hugging, and touching that doesn’t lead to sex can help build a stronger and happier relationship and marriage, according to a new study conducted at Binghamton University. The research team examined the effect of non-sexual physical intimacy on relationship satisfaction across a variety of attachment styles.
One’s “attachment style” refers to how comfortable a person is regarding both physical and emotional intimacy. Some people crave such affection, while others are more reserved and selective. These tendencies usually develop within a person during their childhood, but they can also change over time as well.
“It all depends on how open, close and secure you feel with that person, which is impacted by many, many factors,” explains study leader Samantha Wagner, a Binghamton University doctoral student in psychology, in a release.
To examine the connection between marital or relationship satisfaction, attachment style, and touch satisfaction, a group of 184 couples were gathered for the study. All participants were over the age of 18, and no same-sex couples were included. People receiving hormone therapy, and pregnant or breastfeeding women, were also excluded due to the study including hormonal sampling.
Each participant was interviewed separately and asked about their attachment style, the usual amount of touching and affection in their relationship, and their overall happiness with the relationship.
Before starting the study, researchers expected to find that avoidant people wouldn’t enjoy being touched and anxious people would like more physical affection. The findings, though, weren’t as cut and dry as expected.
Regardless of attachment styles, the more a couple reported showing physical affection towards one another, the more satisfied they felt with their partner’s touch. Anxious husbands tended to be less satisfied with their wife’s touch if physical affection was infrequent, but the same relationship wasn’t observed in anxious women. This suggests, according to the study’s authors, that women may look for missing affection more naturally.
Higher overall levels of physical intimacy were linked to more relationship satisfaction in men, and low levels of physical intimacy were linked to relationship dissatisfaction in women. It’s subtle, but researchers believe those two findings point to distinct differences in the genders. For men, physical intimacy is a nice extra, but for women it’s a necessity.
“There’s something specific about touch satisfaction that interplays with relationship satisfaction but not dissatisfaction for wives,” Wagner notes.
Additionally, regardless of attachment styles, touch perception was associated with “touch satisfaction.” Essentially, this means more touching is beneficial because it helps partners communicate without actually speaking. All in all, researchers believe their work indicates non-sexual physical affection can help build a strong relationship.
“Interestingly, there’s some evidence that holding your partner’s hand while you’re arguing de-escalates the argument and makes it more productive,” Wagner comments.
Just like anything else, there are exceptions to these observations. Someone with physical abuse in their past may not react positively to lots of touching, for example.
“Feel free to give some extra snugs on the couch. There’s plenty of evidence that suggests touch as a way to decrease stress,” she concludes.
But Lesbians Are Still Being Left Out Of The Conversation
LGBTQ+ women bring skills, experiences, and insights that straight consumers can benefit from, … [+] says Brianna Radar, the founder of Juicebox.By Franki Cookney
Sex tech entrepreneurs wanting to cater to women, would do well to listen to what lesbians have to say about female pleasure.
Barriers between the traditionally white, straight, male world of investment and the increasingly female-populated worlds of design and production are starting to slowly break down. Women are leading the way in audio porn, sex education, and toy design, and the sexual wellness industry is no longer a stranger to female-founders. But the vast majority of products that come to market are still based around a heterosexual understanding of sex.
Speaking as part of DIVA’s Lesbian Visibility Week schedule of virtual events, psychosexologist Dr Karen Gurney pointed out that there are some key differences when it comes to women who have sex with women. “Research shows that when you ask heterosexual people what sex should look like, there is a formulaic and narrow definition given,” she said in a video talk. “But sexual scripts for women who have sex with women provide more freedom. There’s no typical script for what lesbian sex should look like or who should do what in what order.”
The clinical psychologist and author of of Mind The Gap: The Truth about Desire and how to Future-proof Your Sex Life, Dr Gurney added that women who have sex with women are well-placed to bust myths around female bodies and sexuality. “Women’s bodies are not tricker than mens,” she said. “And women who have sex with women will probably know more about that than a lot of women out there.”
She referred to what is known as The Orgasm Gap, based on a 2016 study into differences in orgasm frequency, which showed that women’s rate of orgasm when they have sex with men is only 65%, while straight men report having an orgasm 95% of the time. However, she points out that the rate of orgasm for women who have sex with women is 85%.
“Women who have sex with women typically report a greater variety and frequency of sexual acts,” she said. “Unsurprisingly, this shows itself in more orgasms, as well as higher reported sexual satisfaction.”
Despite this, marketing in the sexual wellness sector is still largely informed by the experiences of heterosexual women. “Historically, cis men have been the leaders in the space we now call sex tech,” says Maggie Stiggleman, the senior software developer at Lioness. “When women are thought of it’s often only straight women.”
While there are of course similarities between what straight women enjoy in bed and what gay women enjoy, lumping lesbians in with discussions of straight female sexual pleasure is unhelpful. “It is almost like lesbians get forgotten in the mix of female sexuality,” says Alice Derock, the CEO of Wet For Her. “When it comes to products, it does feel lesbian sexuality is approached in the same way as heterosexual women’s sexuality. There doesn’t seem to be an understanding of lesbian couples’ sex and how this is different. There is a market within the lesbian community and I think this sometimes forgotten. ”
Founded in 2009, Wet For Her designs and manufacturers lesbian sex toys. Derock says that while she’s always found the adult industry to be very welcoming, the startup space is still tricky to navigate as a woman, let alone as a lesbian-founded sex tech company.
“Many people assume when you say you have a lesbian business, that it must be making porn,” she says. “When you search the term ‘lesbian’ on search engines, it is always porn that pops up first, even though the terms ‘sex tech’ and ‘sexual wellness’ have become more mainstream.”
Stiggleman says that gay women also face an extra hurdle when it comes to breaking into the sex tech world, because of the ways that sexism and homophobia intersect. “Sex tech companies have a hard time being taken seriously because of the stigma already associated with sex,” she says. “Women-run ones have an even harder time because society has taught us to trust men with business, not women. So, a lesbian-run sex tech company? Investors don’t come running for something society has told them is deviant in so many ways.”
Both women say they feel completely supported and welcomed in their own workplaces, but acknowledge this isn’t always the case. Furthermore, Stiggleman feels proud to be working on a product—a smart vibrator that allows users to measure and track their orgasms—that is taking the lesbian experience into account.
“I do a lot of the designing and coding for our mobile app, and I make sure that we do not assume the sexuality or gender of our users,” she says. “It is important to me that I’m helping to make a great sex tech product when I know that lesbians weren’t even thought of during the inception of many others.”
O.School founder Andrea Barrica recently pointed out that in today’s market there is no single identifiable customer for sex tech products. While there will always be a demand for lesbian-specific products, entrepreneurs looking to reach a broader customer base need to let go of assumptions about what kinds of sex their users are having.
Brianna Radar is the founder of Juicebox whose products include Slutbot, a virtual sexting coach. She thinks the future of sex tech will lie in taking a more gender neutral approach. “That’s the future Gen Z is looking for,” she says. “Not necessarily a product that exclusively speaks to queer women but a more gender neutral approach that’s personalized.”
She too thinks that LGBTQ+ women bring skills, experiences, and insights that straight consumers benefit from. “More than any other demographic, queer people are excellent at talking about sex,” she says. “We have to be, as minorities. The goal of our product is to take everything I’ve learned from being in fringe communities and bring the positive aspects to the mainstream.”
Cancer can change how you feel about you, your body and your sexuality.
By Good Housekeeping
Cancer changes everything. The diagnosis, the treatment and the aftermath can affect your work, your finances, your relationships and, even more fundamentally, how you think and feel about you, your body, your sexuality.
The impact of treatment for breast and gynaecological cancers can be far reaching. Sometimes the changes are very visible, such as a mastectomy, while chemotherapy, radiotherapy or a hysterectomy can cause other issues, including infertility, early menopause, fatigue, loss of libido and physical changes like narrowing and shortening of the vagina, vaginal dryness and painful sex.
Changes to your body and the way you feel about it can come as a shock post treatment, says clinical psychologist Dr Frances Goodhart. “Treatment can be gruelling and often your sole focus is on getting through it. When it’s over and you’re living with a changed body, worrying about cancer coming back and feeling as though you’ve lost part of yourself, you can struggle with the sense of who you are.”
You don’t have to love your body but it is important to be able to accept.
If you find yourself struggling, you are certainly not alone. Research by Target Ovarian Cancer in 2016 found that 69% of women with ovarian cancer suffered a loss of self esteem, 73% had difficulty with intimacy and 84% reported a lower sex drive. Similarly Breast Cancer Care researchers found that eight in 10 women were unhappy with their sex life after treatment and research by Jo’s Cervical Cancer Trust found that 67% of women experienced changes to their sex lives.
Given these statistics it’s clear that at least for some women, learning to love your body post cancer can be a very big ask. “Let’s be realistic – how many women actually love their bodies pre-cancer?” says Dr Goodhart. “So you don’t have to love your body but it is important to be able to accept it and recognise what it has brought you through.”
Read on for advice for finding that acceptance…
Try not to put off looking at your scars
If you have scars or other visible changes to your body, try not to put off looking at them with your doctor or nurse if this helps. Take it gradually – it’s normal to feel shocked and upset at first but for most women these feelings will ease over time.
Ask for help if you need it
And do it as soon as possible. Jo’s Trust found that two thirds of the women who experienced changes to their sex life didn’t tell a doctor. Your GP or clinical nurse specialist can provide practical help with issues such as vaginal dryness, tightness and pain and give you information on how to cope with sexual difficulties or put you in touch with someone who can help.
Intimacy doesn’t have to mean intercourse
Holding hands, cuddling, kissing, stroking can all help you to slowly get back to feeling closer and rebuild your confidence in taking things to the next level, or not. Remember it’s ok to not want to be sexual – it’s only a problem if it’s causing a problem.
Keep talking to your partner
What you have been through is scary for both of you and communication can break down if both of you avoid saying how you really feel to try to protect the other from hurt.
If you are single and want to meet someone, take your time
Dating can be hard and you are likely to feel frightened of rejection. It can be hard to know when to share the information about your cancer with a new partner – while there is no simple answer it’s important to reach a stage where you feel as though can you trust your new partner, especially if you have body changes that they don’t know about. Honesty is key to successful relationships and a loving partner should accept you as you are.
Allow yourself to grieve
You have experienced major changes to your body and a loss of confidence and certainty and it’s quite normal to feel sad, angry, defiant, even disbelieving about what has happened.
Express yourself
Talking to your partner, to a friend, to a counsellor or to other women who have been through it can help you to process what has happened and find your way forward. Some people find that writing a journal where you allow yourself to write exactly what you feel, or starting a blog.
Exercise can help boost your mood and your body confidence
One study found that twice weekly strength training after cancer helped improve women’s body image and feel better about their appearance, health, physical strength, sexuality, relationships and social functioning.
Find the positives
Despite the challenges, many women find that they emerge from treatment with a new found respect for their body. “It certainly takes time to rebuild confidence in your body but many women say that they start to reassess and to realise what their body is capable of. Women say to us if I can get beyond this I can tackle anything head on,” says Lizzy Rodgers, head of supportive services at Target Ovarian Cancer.
I hear this often from my married women clients, especially those who have children or are in their late 40s. The women who say this have one thing in common: They don’t feel emotionally connected with their husbands.
How lack of connection can affect your sex drive.
Not everyone needs emotional connection for sex to be great, but in long-term relationships, the lack of connection can be a huge factor in a person’s desire to have sex with their partner. In relationships between men and women, there can also sometimes be a chicken-or-egg problem when it comes to sex and connection: Many men say that they feel emotionally connected after sex, while many women need to feel emotionally connected in order to want to have sex. This isn’t a hard-and-fast rule, of course—everyone’s different—but I do regularly notice this conundrum among my clients.
Here’s the interesting thing: Many of my women clients say that when they visit their husband at work and see him in his power, they do feel turned on by him. But when he comes home, he becomes an anxious, complaining, needy little boy—and they are not turned on by that whatsoever.
What’s going is that their husband is powerful in the work arena but self-abandoning—and thus needy—in the emotional arena. He wants sex to relax and feel good about himself rather than to connect with his wife. Rather than taking responsibility for his own feelings of stress and anxiety, he’s coming to his wife expecting for her to make him feel better (or worse, to use her for his own comfort). This dynamic invariably leads to his wife feeling used by him rather than loved.
There is nothing erotic about a needy person.
The situation is also often reversed, where a man wants more emotional connection with a female partner whereas she is disconnected, self-abandoning, and needy. When someone is coming to you for sex that’s all about making them feel validated and soothed, it’s not much of a turn-on.
Having sex to connect—not out of neediness.
Sex in a long-term relationship thrives when both partners are loving and taking care of themselves and then sharing their love with each other. This means that each partner needs to do whatever inner work is necessary to come to their partner full of love for their partner rather than coming from emptiness and neediness. We cannot be loving and emotionally connected when we are rejecting and abandoning our own feelings and then expecting our partner to make us feel OK about ourselves.
This might be a hard pill to swallow—yes, you’ll need to do the inner work before you’re going to see your sex life really come back to life. The good news is, sexuality in general thrives when both partners are open to learning about themselves and about each other, which is what creates growth and newness in long-term relationships. Sex doesn’t become boring when the relationship isn’t boring, and it isn’t boring when learning and emotional growth are an integral part of a relationship.
Partners also need to make time alone together a high priority—time to share their day, to support each other, to share a meal, to do something fun, and to laugh together. This is how to emotionally connect with your partner. Emotional connection occurs when both people are open and loving with themselves and each other, with no agenda other than to share their love with each other. If one partner has a sexual agenda, the interaction won’t feel loving and genuine. Sexuality will often emerge naturally from their authentic emotional intimacy.
Most people in lockdown, as 75% of Americans are at the moment, are probably experiencing big changes to their usual routine. There’s no office commute, no school bus shuttle; there are no parties to attend, no group dinners to plan. It’s unsurprising, then, that for a lot of people, those changes may also be affecting their sex life.
For some, less sex during the pandemic is a given—for those who are self-isolating while single, making their usual sex lives too risky, or those whose partners are away or sickened by the virus. Meanwhile, those with the option of having more sex might well be taking it: Condoms may become the next item to be in short supply worldwide, while some have speculated that maternity wards will see an uptick in mothers giving birth nine months after the lockdowns began.
But if you’re not feeling in the mood, well, you’re not alone. On Twitter, users lamented that “general panic and despair” had led to the sudden disappearance of their libido, as one put it. Others described feeling “unappealing” or wanting to cuddle and eat snacks instead. In a poll of just over 9,000 people from NBC News, only 24% said the coronavirus outbreak had positively affected their sex lives (28% were neutral and 47% said it had affected them negatively).
Online, sex researchers and therapists acknowledge that people could really go either way. “After all, we know from a mountain of psychological research that two people can respond to the same situation in very different ways and that the factors that increase sexual desire in some can drive it down in others,” Justin Lehmiller, a sex researcher at the Kinsey Institute, wrote in a blog post.
Wondering what’s going on? There might be a few reasons why you’re feeling different about getting busy.
Fighting off the blues
“For plenty of people, when they get stressed out, sex is the farthest thing from their mind,” says Heather McPherson, a sex therapist based in Austin, Texas. Between worrying about elderly parents, figuring out how to exercise at home, and managing a new routine, “a lot of things can point toward not doing it, because you’re so focused on surviving,” she says. Meanwhile, “stress and anxiety and potentially losing your job will potentially take a toll on all relationships.”
Still, in such unusual circumstances, it’s hard to know which behaviors are most common, McPherson says. “We don’t really have good measures to go off.”
Some people may see the opposite effect altogether: “For some people, when anxiety and stress goes up, their libido kicks up,” with sex serving as a coping mechanism. This is the phenomenon dubbed the “apocalyptic hornies” by Men’s Health, perhaps contributing to a 17.8% increase in US site traffic to PornHub on March 24, compared to an average day.
Writing in Psychology Today, sex therapist Diane Gleim suggests that it all comes down to a delicate balancing act: “A person’s sex drive needs just enough anxiety/tension/uncertainty to get activated but not too much anxiety/tension/uncertainty or else the person can get overwhelmed, flooded, and then sex drive goes underground,” she writes. “Think of it like the Goldilocks principle: not too much (anxiety), not too little (anxiety), but just (the) right (amount of anxiety).”
One of the few studies into the relationship between trauma and the libido, published in the International Journal of Gynecology and Obstetrics, looked at the effect of the massive 2008 earthquake in Wenchuan, China, on the reproductive health of 170 local women. Researchers found a marked decrease in women’s satisfaction with their sex life: Before the quake, 55% of women surveyed said they were satisfied, falling to 21% afterwards. They had less sex, too: Before the quake, every woman surveyed said they were having sex at least once a week, and in the week immediately after, 89% said they had not had sex at all. Even a month later, 32% said they were still not having sex.
The economy sucks
If US history is anything to go by, a downturn in economic prospects is similarly bad news for the nation’s sex life. That’s according to studies on the nation’s birth rate: During years of prosperity, such as the 1950s, the US birth rate soared. Its greatest nadirs, meanwhile, coincided with times of economic hardship: the Great Depression of 1929, the 1973 oil crisis, and the 2008 recession.
Between 2008 and 2013, for instance, nearly 2.3 million fewer babies were born in the US than would have been expected if pre-recession fertility rates had persisted, according to one study from the University of New Hampshire’s Carsey School of Public Policy.
Some of this may be pragmatic, of course—who wants to have another child when they can barely afford the ones they have? Still, while birth rate isn’t a perfect measure for how much sex people are having (especially after 1960, when the pill went on sale as a contraceptive), it’s one of the better indicators widely available.
Too much togetherness
In long-term relationships, it can be hard to keep the mystery alive at the best of times. That goes double when you’re stuck together in the confined space of your own home, with few opportunities for independent activities or time apart.
Too much closeness, in fact, can actually hinder the kind of intimacy we look for in sex, sex therapist and relationship guru Esther Perel writes in her book Mating in Captivity:
It is too easily assumed that problems with sex are the result of a lack of closeness. But … perhaps the way we construct closeness reduces the sense of freedom and autonomy needed for sexual pleasure. When intimacy collapses into fusion, it is not a lack of closeness but too much closeness that impedes desire.
Love rests on two pillars: surrender and autonomy. Our need for togetherness exists alongside our need for separateness. One does not exist without the other. With too much distance, there can be no connection. But too much merging eradicates the separateness of two distinct individuals. Then there is nothing more to transcend, no bridge to walk on, no one to visit on the other side, no other internal world to enter. When people become fused—when two become one—connection can no longer happen. There is no one to connect with. Thus separateness is a precondition for connection: this is the essential paradox of intimacy and sex.
During this interminable period of intense stress and anxiety, it’s hardly surprising if you find your libido vacillating from one extreme to the other. Sex therapist McPherson said many of her clients had found themselves settling gradually into a new routine after a few weeks in lockdown. As human beings, “generally, we’re pretty resilient,” she says. And when it comes to sex in quarantine, there’s one undeniable upside: “You certainly have enough time to do it.”
While many women understand that overall pleasure, exploration, intimacy, and play should all be at center stage in a sexual experience, and not simply an orgasm (although, let’s be clear, it is still an important component), the latter often eclipses all else — which is why and how things can often go south. In fact, sex experts agree that goal-oriented sex can actually take the fun out of it for women altogether.
Thanks to social movements likeThe Cliteracy Project, an art series with the mission of educating a largely “il-cliterate” culture, women are more open to talking about their sexual experiences, preferences, and struggles than ever before. One of the major focal points of female sexuality to emerge in recent years involves the very real orgasm gap between men and women and the root of its existence. According to a 2016 study from the Archives of Sexual Behavior that looked at more than 52,500 adults in the U.S. — including those who are lesbian, gay, and bisexual — 95 percent of heterosexual men reported they usually or always orgasmed during sex, compared to just 65 percent of heterosexual women.
So, why are people creating a goal around something that should just have to do with mutual pleasure? Well, much of it can be traced back to a more archaic view of male and female sexuality — and orgasms in general. “Because the male orgasm is crucial to procreate, our society has built this idea that the male orgasm is crucial for sex; that sex begins with a hard penis and ends with a flaccid penis. Since women don’t have to orgasm to create life, it took a different level of societal importance,” says Shan Boodram, certified intimacy educator to The Zoe Report. “With that said, the majority of sex today has nothing to do with the desire to procreate. In fact, the orgasm numbers for women skyrocket in same-sex partnerships compared to heterosexual relationships. When you are with a same-sex partner, there is nothing to prove — it’s just about what feels good, and that is when naturally more orgasms and more pleasure occurs.”
Moral of the story here? Sex should be about being in the moment, true intimacy, and enjoying one another. It’s not a race to the finish line. “If you look at sex like, how good can I feel for as long as I want to feel it and for as long as my partner wants to feel it, great,” says Boodram. “And if an orgasm is the final result, even better. But if it’s just that you got more play time and felt great and relaxed, it’s still a successful sexual experience.”
Why Goal-Oriented Sex Is Sabotaging Your Intimate Life
Ashley Manta, sex and relationship coach and creator of lifestyle brand CannaSexual, seconds this notion. “Goal-oriented sex often robs the participants of the pleasure and joy of the experience,” says Manta. “Often the pressure to be demonstrative while receiving pleasure and to reach an arbitrary goal, in this case the orgasm… keeps them fixated on a point in the future.” Like anything in life, if you take yourself out of the present moment, it becomes difficult to enjoy.
Again, to be clear, orgasms are absolutely important and should be enjoyed by all, however, according to Sensual Embodiment Coach and Priestess of Passion, Ani Ferlise, “our attachment to the orgasm is ignoring all the amazing, healing, and nourishing pleasurable experiences in our bodies! We as a society are addicted to this very specific kind of pleasure based off of a male-bodied orgasm — a buildup of sensation, then a release. It’s the false promises that movies and porn portray. It’s two minutes of extreme penetration and there are fireworks… probably not going to happen.”
When one can detach themselves from the notion that climaxing makes the overall sexual experience a success, one can then truly become sexually free. Redefining what the orgasm is for you can actually help you relax more easily into one.
How To Be More Mindful With Your Sex Life
Ferlise holdsSex Magic coaching programs and workshops to help women cultivate their sacred sexual energy which, in turn, become a microcosm to nurturing passion, vibrancy, and connection in their overall life. One thing prevalent in her teachings is mindfulness, which is about remaining present in the moment and being aware of one’s bodily sensations. Intimacy starts with eye contact and can trickle into a conversation, a physical touch, or an energy exchange, even before any clothes are taken off. Allowing yourself to be vulnerable and to feel the desire, lust, and emotions as they come can help redefine the orgasm.
“Letting yourself sink into all the subtle sensations of pleasure, really leaning into it and feeling it in your body, and taking the same stock in that, can help you come back into your body and turn up the pleasure all over,” Ferlise says. When one is hyper focused on outside factors, they can train themselves to disassociate during sex, pushing their minds away from sensation, which ultimately decreases the amount one is able to feel.
Top Sex Tips For Ultimate Pleasure
Teach Your Partner What You Like
Manta tells her clients to “relax and breathe… and focus on what brings you the most pleasure, instead of what you think is going to get you off. Mimic the things you do when you’re masturbating and show your partner how you enjoy being touched.” Exploring self-pleasure is a great place to start in knowing what you like and dislike. Intimacy is uniquely personal — everyone’s body and interests are different, and we should communicate that to our partner or partners.
Get Out Of Your Head
One major complaint Ferlise says many women have during sex is that they think too much about how they look, how their partner feels, and how they are performing. “Adding all the body shame, the fear of being seen, and the fear of vulnerability, the fear of being broken because you think you can’t orgasm, the shame of not performing right — that so many women experience — it leads to a disconnect in your body and can cause you to check out during sex,” Ferlise says. Evidently, your partner will be much more turned on and notice the level of intimacy if you can truly unwind by letting go of these inhibitions.
Accessorize Your Sex Life
Adding tools into the mix can help build confidence in the bedroom. If you don’t feel completely comfortable being naked, try wearing sexy lingerie you feel great in. If you find yourself worried about lubrication and all that comes with it, try enlisting lube or organic coconut oil on your vulva to help ease your mind.
Get Moving
Movement is a helpful tool to be more present. “Move your body sensually in whatever way feels good,” says Ferlise. “Start to breathe into yourself deeply and focus your mind on your [vagina] and allow yourself to make some noise. As you exhale, you can moan and release sound. Your throat and your jaw are directly related to your pelvic bowl, and if they are tight and closed, so is your pelvic bowl.”
How To Embrace The Sex Life That Works For You
Women have an incredibly powerful sexual energy with great orgasmic potential. But this expands far beyond society’s picture of the “Big O.” Not only has culture suppressed the conversation and education around sex but it has put the female orgasm into a tiny box when it deserves so much more than a toe curl and high-pitched moan.
Everyone has the right to feel comfortable and unapologetic in their sexuality, whether that be via BDSM or missionary style twice a week. Closing the pleasure gap starts with experiencing and experimenting what works for you and letting go of the goal-oriented mindset. Don’t negate the importance of orgasms, but rather shift your mind to focus on how to achieve more overall pleasure. You deserve to feel safe and free in your body, as you are, at its highest potential.
Below are some products that help enhance sexual pleasure and health for people with vulvas. A happier healthier sex life should be on the top of everyone’s to-do list.
Sex is good for longevity… right? If one of your resolutions for this year was to improve your sex life, we’d understand. While there are benefits that have been linked to healthy sex life, not everyone seems to be reaping these benefits – and not without a lack of trying.
In fact, a new Australian study has suggested that many women are quite dissatisfied with their bedroom activity (previous research has suggested that women may only orgasm 50% of the time during intercourse when compared to men’s 90% ). According to the researchers of this particular study, half of young Australian women experience sexually-related personal distress. In fact, one in five women has at least one female sexual dysfunction (FSD).
For the study, the women were each asked to complete a questionnaire that assessed their sexual wellbeing in terms of desire, arousal, responsiveness, orgasm, and self-image. The women also shared whether they had sexually-associated personal distress, and also provided extensive demographic information.
The results
The results, published in the journal Fertility and Sterility, revealed that 50.2% of young Australian women experienced some form of sexually-related personal distress.
Of these women, nearly 29.6% didn’t actually have a ‘dysfunction’, per se. Instead, their distress was often a result of feelings of guilt, embarrassment, stress, or general unhappiness with regard to their sex lives.
On the other hand, 20.6% had at least one female sexual dysfunction (FSD). The most common FSD was a low sexual self-image, which caused distress for 11% of the women. Common factors associated with low sexual self-image included being overweight or obese, living with a partner, and breastfeeding.
Additionally, arousal dysfunction, desire dysfunction, and orgasm dysfunction and responsiveness dysfunction affected 9%, 8%, 7.9% and 3.4% of the study cohort respectively.
Also, the study also revealed that 20% of the surveyed women were taking psychotropic medication (such as antidepressants). This appeared to have the most widespread impact on women’s sexual function. It should be noted that the use of the combined oral contraceptive pill was not associated with any sexual dysfunction.
Lastly, women who routinely monitored their appearance, and who determined their level of physical self-worth on said appearance, reported being less sexually assertive. They also revealed that they were more self-conscious during sex. Additionally, they also experienced lower sexual satisfaction.
Addressing dissatisfaction during sex
According to senior author and Professor of Women’s Health at Monash University, Susan Davis, if left untreated, sexually-related personal distress and FSD may impact relationships. They may even affect their overall quality of life. That said, there may be a few ways to address the concerns raised by the survey findings. Granted, serious sexual disorders may require intervention from a sex therapist, but there may be other ways to address some of the issues highlighted in the findings.
Low self-image
If you’re battling with low sexual self-esteem, there are a few ways to which you can improve it. These include;
Build inner confidence outside the bedroom. Try limiting the amount of time you spend on social media. You should also try regularly affirming yourself.
Try self-pleasure. This can allow you to better tap into your sexuality, and better confirm what you like – and don’t like.
Don’t shy away from communicating with your partner, and feel free to share your desires, fears as well as suggestions.
That said, the aforementioned tips may also help to address the other issues affecting a woman’s satisfaction with her sex life, particularly the feelings of guilt, embarrassment, stress, or general unhappiness.
If you find yourself trapped in a sexless marriage and don’t know what to do to restore the passion and intimacy, then it’s time to reframe your idea of what the problem in your relationship is.
Many married couples have less sex as time goes on, but it doesn’t hurt the connection and intimate times with one another.
So how can you fix a relationship when there’s no sex and you’re worried that you and your spouse are drifting apart?
The truth is that your sexless marriage likely does not have anything to do with sex.
In fact, in many cases, your sexual shutdown has more to do with your relationship versus any true lack of physical compatibility or desire for sex!
So, it’s time to give yourself (and your partner) a break — allow yourself permission to overcome the lack of sex in your relationships and reclaim the rightful pleasure in your marriage. You deserve a marriage filled with hot, sweaty, sweet, soulful, passionate, and intimate moments.
All roads lead to sex. After all, we were created from sex. Not to mention it’s one of the most natural ways to connect, intimately, in partnership and marriage. Yet, for so many marriages sex becomes a thing of the past and an “issue.”
Sexless marriage is rampant within our culture. Couples fall in love, get married, and their once hot connection dwindles out and the “flame of desire” dies. There are a lot of deep and intimate reasons why this happens, but these three are the most prevalent:
Unresolved conflicts.
First and foremost, when conflict goes unresolved it forces a wedge in a marriage. This wedge shuts down the passion and desire for intimacy, touching, and lovemaking. In many cases, the relationship becomes superficial, cold, and even hardened. Years of dormant, unresolved, issues fester like poisonous venom, leaking out in sarcasm and hurtful words. Or, words are rarely spoken, making intimate dialogue non-existent.
Stress.
Second, you may begin to feel that you love the person you’re with and, in your mind, you want sex but stress and tension have gotten in the way so you have put up walls of resistance. Here, the marriage becomes a melting pot of stress, fighting, disagreements and shut down.
Hormone imbalances.
Lastly, there’s the body. Body issues get in the way of intimacy and block contact because you “just don’t feel like it anymore.” The feelings that once had you loving sex, have switched off due to your physiological imbalances and lack of desire to connect.
No matter what the cause, these issues are all very tough to deal with, and can ruin a marriage … if left unattended. The great thing is, you can resolve them and make way for sex to reappear (better than ever) in your marriage!
Here are 5 ways to fix a relationship that’s missing physical intimacy, without even having sex:
1. Let go of what a “great sex life” looks like
Let go of all of your preconceived notions of sex in marriage and realize that we’re all human, with issues to resolve.
Let go of the shame and guilt you feel towards your relationship.
By letting go of your inner critic and the pressure you’re putting on yourself to have sex, you will begin to free yourself (and mind), in order to get to the root of the problem.
2. Believe in your partner’s good intentions
Relax, find comfort that you and your partner are together for a real, honest reason. And no matter what your circumstances, you can rekindle the flame of love.
The stress and unresolved conflict between you two will resolve with open honest dialogue.
3. Dig up the dirt
Society teaches us not to dig up other people’s dirt. But in marriage, you have to get down and dirty with the truth, in order to build an honest connection of love.
Relationships challenge you to grow in intimacy and love. When you carry a lot of baggage in a marriage, there is some deep dirt to tend to and you can use this dirt to fertilize your sexual pleasure.
4. Trust your partner to try
Trust is why you got married in the first place, right? It wasn’t really just about sex, it was because of a special connection. You trusted this person and you felt connected in a special and fantastic way.
So trust that you are in the partnership for a good reason; trust that your partner was the one you wanted to spend the rest of your life with, through the good and the bad.
Your sexless marriage is just the symptom of the bad. The raw truth asks you to get undressed, emotionally, and reveal your inner conflicts, as a step toward healing them.
5. Ask for help
Find a therapist, coach, or support person. When you ask for help to overcome the issues, then marriage gets much easier. It may prove difficult to deal with these alone, when you have been sexless and fighting.
So, you can receive the honest help that you need, when you’re able to openly ask and tell your partner that you are hurting with objective guidance.
Sex should always be an amazing experience, one that builds a strong partnership. But, sex is at its best when you can connect to your partner, in an adept and loving way. These 5 steps will help you ignite a new passion that may, possibly, be even better than when you first met.
Anyone who’s heard of viagra knows that male sexual dysfunction is a widespread and overwhelmingly-researched issue. On the other hand, we know far less about female sexual dysfunction, even though its incidence is ‘alarmingly high‘, especially among young people.
New research now suggests roughly half of all Australian women aged 18 to 39 experience some form of personal distress related to their sex lives, whether that be guilt, embarrassment, stress, or unhappiness.
Around 20 percent of all participants reported at least one sexual dysfunction, including issues with arousal, desire, orgasm, sexual self-image, and responsiveness in the bedroom.
“It is of great concern that one in five young women have an apparent sexual dysfunction and half of all women within this age group experience sexually-related personal distress,” says clinical epidemiologist and senior author of the paper, Susan Davis from Monash University.
“This is a wake-up call to the community and signals the importance of health professionals being open and adequately prepared to discuss young women’s sexual health concerns.”
Female sexual dysfunction – or FSD as it’s known for short – is a complex, multifaceted disorder that is not well-defined or understood. Today, it is usually diagnosed when someone experiences pain during sex, has a persistent decrease in arousal or desire, or has trouble achieving an orgasm.
FSD can stem from a variety of issues including anatomical, psychological, physiological and social-interpersonal factors. And yet today, it is primarily treated with psychological therapy – that is, when it’s treated at all.
Currently only a small percentage of those with FSD actually seek medical attention for the disorder. And while things are gradually getting better – for instance, there’s a female viagra drug in the process right now – there’s still plenty of room for improvement.
In the United States, similar research suggests over 40 percent of women at the turn of this century had some form of sexual difficulty, while just over 30 percent of men experienced something similar.
Overall, however, the data on FSD, especially in young people, is extremely limited and far from up-to-date. The 1999 study cited above is the most recent study on the prevalence of FSD in the US general population we could find.
What’s more, the little research we do have is usually based on heterosexual women who actively engage in penetrative sex, and many of these surveys fail to consider the full spectrum of sexual dysfunctions.
“The prevalence of low sexual self-image has not been reported in a large community-based sample, nor is the prevalence of sexually associated distress without a specific dysfunction known,” the authors of the new study write.
“Consequently, there is a need for research to fill gaps in the understanding of sexual functioning of young women.”
To do this, the team surveyed a group of 6,986 young females living in Australia, scoring them on their sexual wellbeing in terms of desire, arousal, responsiveness, orgasm and self-image, as well as their levels of sexual distress.
A third of the group was single and nearly 70 percent had been sexually active in the month leading up to the study.
While nearly half the group reported distress in their sex lives, a concerning 30 percent experienced that distress without dysfunction at all.
Most people with an FSD had only one dysfunction, and this was usually related to sexual self-image and self-consciousness during intimacy, which was often tied to being overweight, breastfeeding, or living together with a partner.
Of those who had two sexual dysfunctions, the most common combo usually involved issues with arousal and orgasms, as well as arousal and sexual self-image.
What’s more, psychotropic medication like antidepressants had the most pervasive impact on sexual function, although, the authors warn, this may have more to do with the mental health issue itself than the pharmaceuticals.
When a whopping three dysfunctions were present, the trio usually included issues of desire, arousal, and self-image. And while issues with responsiveness were the most uncommon disorder, over half the people who did suffer from this issue also had three or four other dysfunctions involved.
Compared to older people, the authors say, younger people are less likely to experience low arousal or orgasmic dysfunction, but it seems as though this newer generation might be more distressed by such issues.
Nevertheless, research on this topic is still in its infancy, and there’s little context in which to place these findings.
For instance, the team discovered for some unknown reason that Asian women were significantly less likely to have an FSD compared to white women. And, for the first time, they also turned up a link between breastfeeding and sexual self-image dysfunction.
Clearly, more solutions are needed other than what we are currently offering.
“That approximately one-half of young women experience sexually related personal distress and one in five women have an FSD, with sexual self-image dysfunction predominating, is concerning,” the authors conclude.
“The high prevalence of sexually related personal distress signals the importance of health professionals, particularly those working in the field of gynecology and fertility, being adequately prepared to routinely ask young women about any sexual health concerns and to have an appropriate management or referral pathway in place.”
Sexual wellbeing, they say, is a fundamental right for all people.
According to Canadian sexologist Peggy Kleinplatz, Ph.D., the vast majority of problems that bring people into sex therapy stem from what she calls the “North American sex script” that centers on having heterosexual intercourse with orgasms in all the right places, meaning, women should be experiencing orgasms reliably through sexual intercourse, which is actually not the case.
Even with additional clitoral stimulation, less than half of women (43%) report experiencing orgasm through intercourse 75% of the time. In other words, our cultural view of sexuality is narrow, limiting, and performance-oriented, favoring what does not appear to come naturally.
Inspired by Kleinplatz, I have gleaned seven lessons from my own research and work with clients. These lessons, or take-aways, offer an invitation to understand and explore yourself and your lover in a whole new dimension of sexual pleasure:
1. Do not judge your erotic self or the erotic experience.
Practice radical self-acceptance. Learn to love your body, exactly as it is. This is one of the biggest lessons, mentioned by nearly all of my participants. They also become curious about their own sexuality and went about exploring what turned them on. Learn to embrace your unique erotic fingerprint—whatever it is.
Let yourself be exactly as you are in the moment. And let the moment be exactly as it is. Sex is our willingness to be sexual beings, however that shows up. Remember first and foremost that good sex is about being present.
2. Tune in.
Shift your focus inward to listen closely to what you want and what your body yearns for. What are your fantasies? How do you like to be touched? Why not explore all areas of your body that can give you pleasure? Become keenly aware of what pleases you across the senses beyond touch—don’t forget about sounds and tastes. Are you interested in perhaps being more active when you tend to be receptive? More receptive when you’re usually more active? Making subtle shifts in your habitual roles may reveal new ways that you can be turned on.
Paying attention to sensations is key for pleasurable sex. If your mind wanders and starts to get into “spectatoring” mode—becoming goal-directed or self-conscious—simply notice that without judgment, letting those thoughts be exactly as they are while you bring your attention back to the senses.
3. Be patient—about getting turned on.
When you want to have intercourse, for example, don’t begin until you and/or your partner are sufficiently aroused. Allow the sex to unfold without rushing into it. Although this advice may seem simplistic, it’s hugely important to experiencing the pleasure of sex. Slow down and savor the sensations. Let them build. Enjoy the journey without concern about the destination.
4. Stay connected to your partner.
You have a number of tools to use with your partner—to manage defenses, be an attentive and active listener, and be open to differences in erotic fingerprints or desire. Respect these differences and you will feel more connected. Often the best way to connect is actually going beyond words.
Look into your partner’s eyes and breathe with your partner while sitting silently. See the person in front of you, the being you fell in love with. Spoon your partner and hold them and synchronize your breath to synchronize your nervous systems. This actually works. We are like tuning forks and go into “cardiac” entrainment with lovers (and even our pets) when we settle into the connection. Good sex is connected sex.
5. Take risks.
We often feel hesitant to speak up with partners about parts of ourselves that we think they will judge or worry that if we tell them how we truly feel, we will hurt them. We tend to play it safe when in doubt. But another way to look at this is that there is a risk to not taking risks. If we don’t explore some of the scarier places with our partners, if we don’t explore the corners of our erotic selves, we tend to shut down and stagnate. And stagnation, itself, is dangerous to relationships.
Sexual potential unfolds when we bring all of ourselves into the mix. We are always, always shifting and changing and growing. Taking the risk to reveal how these changes affect us, our thoughts, our fears, our feelings, even our fantasies tends to revitalize the partnership.
6. Prioritize pleasure.
Allow sex to play a larger role in your life. Your work with your seven core emotions has paved the way for more keen awareness and insight into how and why pleasure is so important to your life, so allow sex to play a larger role. Make time for sex, expand your notion of what sex is, nurture it, and explore it. It’s a journey without an end.
7. Tolerate emotions and embrace the transformative nature of sex.
Because of the blend of emotional and physical drivers of sex, any type of sexual experience or activity has the capacity to stir up all kinds of emotions. One of the most important lessons for good sex and also good relationships, in general, is to learn how to more fully tolerate our feelings, other people’s feelings, and our feelings about other people’s feelings. And sometimes the most challenging feelings to tolerate, believe it or not, are intense feelings of pleasure—which for some can feel scarily out of control.
When we can learn to simply allow the feelings to be as they are, stay present to ourselves and to each other, the experiences we can have with and through sex can be truly healing and can revitalize our mind, body, and spirit. It is a tangible form of connection to others, a source of immune-boosting energy, and a vast reservoir for pleasure.
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