Can You Orgasm From Intercourse Alone?
By colleenoakley. Posted on .
Sophie*, 27, and Janine, 30, were headed down to the corner deli for their usual breakfast: bagels with cream cheese, tomato, and onion. Coworkers and close friends outside the office, for the past three years they had chewed over just about everything together-dating disasters, same-sex experimentation, their divergent definitions of feminism. Still, Janine paused mid-bite when Sophie said, out of the blue: "I'm polling my girlfriends, so I wanted to ask: Do you need to use your hands to orgasm
when you have sex?"
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In this age of frank talk about getting it on-courtesy of six seasons of Sex and the City-suddenly, everyone's a sexpert. It's not only accepted, but expected, that we dissect our love lives over brunch. And it's rare that any racy inquiry has conversation-stopping powers.
With one exception. Now, we've moved beyond the yes-or-no question of whether friends orgasm-to the new dishy issue du jour: how, exactly, we all get there. His hands? Yours? A little help from a vibrator? Is intercourse a sure-fire autobahn to ecstasy for everyone? Is an orgasm from penetration alone somehow better? And if it doesn't work for you, does that mean something's wrong?
Your Orgasm, Explained
Facts first: 80 percent of women cannot orgasm from intercourse alone, says Ian Kerner, PhD, author of She Comes First. Still, "many women are socially wired to expect to orgasm via penetration," he says.
The good news? An orgasm achieved through penetration isn't a better, more intense, or a more "real" sexual experience than any other. To understand why requires clearing up a common misconception: "There's no such thing as a pure vaginal orgasm," says Kerner. "The path to consistent, satisfying female orgasms is through clitoral stimulation."
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Now, here's the rub: you may be stimulating your clitoris without knowing it. "Many people think of the clitoris as the little nub that's hidden by the clitoral hood and juts out of the body," says Carolyn Riccardi, education coordinator at Babeland, a female-friendly sex shop in New York City. "But that's not the case. The clitoris is actually shaped like a wishbone. The clitoral 'legs' extend back into the bodym, so when a woman is penetrated, the clitoris is responding to sensation."
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