3 Ways Women Can Prioritize Their Pleasure
There’s a huge pleasure gap, and we want to help change that.
Numbers don’t lie, and the numbers show that men orgasm way, way more often. In fact, heterosexual women are the group with the lowest sexual satisfaction (only 65% usually orgasm with a partner), while heterosexual men are the most satisfied (95% always orgasm with a partner).
Why? Well, lots of reasons. Society celebrates men’s sexual pleasure while promoting women as the objects of that pleasure. A guy with many partners is celebrated, a woman of the same freedom is shamed. Dudes can largely get away with a beer gut and funky toenails, while women are riddled with body image issues stemming from a million different sources from the time we are born. We’re heavily focused on penetrative sex-- there are a million nicknames for penis, while in the same breath, the women’s pleasure center is incorrectly quantified as one single “vagina.” Meanwhile, sex education teaches boys about erections and ejaculation, while girls get lessons on periods and unwanted pregnancies. It rarely covers pleasure, and certainly doesn’t teach us anything about sexual communication. It’s no wonder there is a pleasure gap, but we feel confident there are conversations happening in order to begin changing that.
We’ve got to close the orgasm gap. While it would be great for everyone to get behind this initiative, a great place to start is empowering women to know and act on the fact that their pleasure needs to be prioritized.
#1 Extracurricular understanding
Most women understand the importance of the clitoris in reaching orgasm. Now, it’s time we help men to understand that. Only approx. 18% of women can climax from penetration alone-- it is the clitoral stimulation that is the key player here. It’s not necessarily the knowledge of this that matters, but the actual understanding that clitoral stimulation is just as important as penetration (what allows women to climax and what allows men to climax should be equal).
#2 Communicate
One of the main reasons why women don’t experience orgasms as much is not because men don’t want women to experience pleasure, they may just not know how- making communication key. In order to bridge this gap it’s important for women to get to know what brings them pleasure- we’re all so different! This can be done through masturbation or exploration with a partner.
Once we know what brings us pleasure, the next thing is to communicate that to our partner. This will be a learning experience for both sides but it will pay off greatly not only in the bedroom but also in growing mutual trust and respect.
#3 Stop faking it
There is no need to be embarrassed-- most of us have faked an orgasm. Sometimes we’re protecting our partner’s ego, other times we know we’re not going to come and need it to be over, and most of the time, it’s both. While it certainly is the easy way out, we’re doing ourselves (obviously) and our partners a disservice--how will they improve if they think they’re nailing it? With that safe, trusted space comes an ability to ask for what we need without fearing that we’ll offend the other person. (A partner who is angered by such directions needs to check their ego immediately--if all women were able to establish a zero tolerance policy for sexual selfishness, we have a sneaking suspicion that men would quickly learn to be better.) To level the pleasure playing field, we have to stop protecting the male ego.
Closing the orgasm gap isn’t going to be easy, but taking the time to prioritize your own pleasure is a serious start! As long as we are celebrating ourselves and educating our partners, we’re making strides in the right direction. Our culture isn’t going to change or improve overnight-- it’s a continued fight that we have to believe is worth our efforts.