5 Insecurities Every Woman Has About Having An Orgasm
You are so far from being alone.
I love having sex. But that doesn't mean sex is always easy for me — especially when it comes to having orgasms.
For the first few years I was sexually active, I didn't have orgasms: I had orgasm problems.
I couldn't have an orgasm with my partner. It was taking me too long to orgasm, I couldn't orgasm from vaginal penetration alone... the list went on and on and (woefully) on. I became convinced that I was the only person my age experiencing these orgasm problems.
It wasn't until I started talking to my friends and doing some early-era Googling that I began to discover that my orgasm problems weren't really problems at all: they were the same insecurities surrounding orgasms that so many women face each and every time it comes to even talking about orgasms.
With that in mind, I decided it would be prudent and super helpful to share 5 of the things women are the most insecure about when it comes to orgasms. Best case scenario, they help you realize you aren't alone!
These 5 issues could be coming between you and your petit mort:
1. "I'm insecure because I can't have an orgasm from penetrative sex."
Before I get into the words, let me hit you with some important numbers: 75% of all women cannot have an orgasm from vaginal penetration alone. So go get in a room with three other women and look around. Only one of those women is having orgasms from penis-in-vagina penetration, okay? They are they freak, not you (JK, no one is a freak when it comes to their sex lives unless we're using freak in the whole "I'm taking this word back," kind of way.)
Even women who do have orgasms from vaginal penetration are having clitoral orgasms, because the clitoris is 10 times larger than it appears and the bulk of it is inside of your vulva and vagina.
Women who can have orgasms easily during vaginal penetration are having orgasms because of the distance between their clitoris and their vaginal opening. It's a simple genetic fluke that makes an orgasm happen for them more easily this way.
For the rest of us, myself included, clitoral play and lots of foreplay, in general, are required in order to lead to a successful climax.
2. "I'm insecure because I can only have an orgasm alone."
Here's some more math for you: only 57% of women having partnered sex are also having orgasms during that partnered sex. For men? It's 95% of the time when it comes to orgasm with a partner. Go figure. Just another way in which men have it so much easier than the rest of the us (she said, not at all bitterly).
There are many different reasons you might be able to have an orgasm alone and not with a partner, and none of them mean that anything is wrong with you — at all! It takes women longer to have an orgasm. Also, if a man's penis is an on and off switch, then a woman's vagina is like a PlayStation 4, glowing, mysterious, and woefully void of any helpful instructions so you just sort of poke it and hope something good happens.
Confidence, self-esteem, trust, and comfort with your partner are all factors that you need to weigh when analyzing why you might have a problem orgasming with your dude or dudette.
If you can have an orgasm alone but not with a partner, you know all the bits work. Now it's just a matter of figuring out how to communicate your orgasmic needs to your partner in a way that can be constructive and productive for you both.
Do not ever fake an orgasm. If you do, you are reinforcing your partner's technique, a technique that has thus far, failed to even remotely come close to getting you off.
3. "I'm insecure because I can't have multiple orgasms."
It is true that women can have multiple orgasms. It is also true that there is no limit to how much a woman is capable of orgasming in the course of one evening, but that doesn't mean that having multiple orgasms is something every woman can do.
Also, just because your body is biologically capable of having orgasm after orgasm, after orgasm, that doesn't mean that YOUR body enjoys that feeling. Many women report that trying to have another orgasm after one successful encounter during sex can feel just too damn sensitive and uncomfortable.
That's fine! You're listening to your body's cues, and while that's not exactly the same as a male refractory period, it's still your body sending your mind signals telling you that you and all of your delicious sex bits need a wee bit of a break.
4. "I'm insecure because my orgasms are painful."
You aren't alone. It is not uncommon, given our shifting hormones, for women to experience pain during or immediately following even the world's best orgasm. We're not talking about your muscles going all tense and your calves spasming up, either, I mean real true pain usually caused by abdominal or lower pelvic cramping.
Believe it or not, you might actually be experiencing an internal spasming from the good, good loving. That's right! During orgasm, your muscles contract, and often, pain during orgasm can be those muscles spasming, due to dehydration or, you know, orgasmic aftershocks.
For some women, pain with or after orgasm is something they only begin to experience after menopause with the depletion of estrogen levels. In either case, taking an anti-inflammatory before sex can help, as so not sexy and spontaneous as that sounds.
If your pain is accompanied by any other symptoms or appears to be getting worse, you should, of course, reach out to your doctor.
5. "I'm insecure because it takes me a long time have an orgasm."
Surprise, you're a woman! Welcome.
Bad jokes aside, it just takes the majority of all women longer than their male partners to have an orgasm. Studies find that most women requires at least 20 minutes of sexual foreplay prior to intercourse in order for an orgasm to even be conceptually possible.
Rather than trying to speed up how long it takes you to get there, focus instead on instructing your partner (lovingly) on how to get you there, even if that means doing it after he's had his own orgasm.
While there is more to sex than orgasms, they are a very nice addition, and women shouldn't be robbed of them just because it takes us a little bit longer to reach that ultimate destination than it does for our male counterparts.