Do Women Actually Like Penetrative Sex?

And more importantly…have we been given the chance to like it?

I’ve been on a Viagra kick lately. You’ve probably noticed.

I can’t help it. I’m absolutely fascinated. I had no idea there were so many people talking about the psychology of this medication, the social impacts, and the way it affects relationships. Until now, it’s been nothing but a simple tool, in my eyes.

So I asked a question on multiple platforms: What would it be like to live in a world without Viagra? Not pre-1998. (Smart alecks.) Today. What would it be like today?

I honestly thought I’d be flooded with responses from people of all genders saying they couldn’t imagine such a thing, that Viagra and its compatriots had saved their sex lives, and unicorns and candy canes were shooting out of men’s dicks on the regular.

And yes, I got a few comments like that. But the overwhelming majority of comments were from women who pointed out that penetrative sex doesn’t get women off and that we’re not the ones who ever asked for or needed Viagra. From their perspective, having access to this little blue pill didn’t matter to them one way or the other.

I wasn’t surprised to hear so many women talk about their frustrations with penetrative sex. There are a lot of statistics out there about how few women can orgasm just from a penis thrusting into a vagina — the numbers range from 30 to 10 percent. It’s pretty low.

But I don’t need numbers to tell me this. I have a vagina. I get it. If I’m not in a position to at least have a partner’s pubic bone clunking against my clit during penetrative sex, an orgasm will not be within my grasp. Whenever I see porn videos of doggy-style sex and the woman looks like she’s in the throes of ecstasy, I roll my eyes, because if there’s ever a position that won’t get a woman to orgasm without a little help, that’s it.

Despite all that…I can’t imagine not having some form of penetration during sex. Was I an outlier? Am I just a freak who happens to enjoy a good vag massage?

Which lead me to the biggest question: Does the average woman have any desire for penetrative sex?

I can’t figure any way out of this piece without doing at least a little bit of explaining the anatomy of the vagina. Believe me, I want it even less than you do. I’ve spent way too much of my adult life explaining to people how my parts work.

I’ll invite you to google it for a deep dive if you are uncertain about anything, which will allow me to keep it brief and simple here.

If you’re a man who has always considered the vagina analogous to the penis, we get it. It’s hard to think outside your own body, and therefore, it makes sense to think that whatever you stick your most pleasurable bit into in order to experience its maximum capacity for pleasure is whatever the other person’s most pleasurable bit will be that gives them the maximum amount of pleasure.

In this case, Mother Nature threw us a bit of a curve ball. It’s the clitoris that is analogous to the penis. The part on the outside of the body, the glans, is just like the tip of the penis (also called the glans). The only difference is that it’s smaller and has twice as many nerve endings (8,000 versus 4,000). The clitoris even engorges just like an erection.

The male and female sex organs are actually quite similar — we all start out with the same parts, but they get arranged differently based on the sex chromosomes we inherit from our father.

Now the vagina is an interesting little vixen. She’s a fascinating mix of business and pleasure. Mother Nature had to create a pathway for making babies — both the “seeding” and “harvesting.” Thus, this little pleasure pocket was created for those bouncy, bobbing boners and the babies they produce.

But it wouldn’t make sense for penetrative sex to only feel good to one partner, right? That’s not exactly going to have a female Homo sapiens flinging her legs open at every opportunity in order to keep the species going.

Though it also makes sense that Mother Nature wouldn’t create a highly sensitive erogenous zone in a place where erotic activity might someday result in the emergence of an inconveniently large H. sapiens infant. Yeow.

So we’ve got something a little bit in the middle. Not the hyper-sensitive clitoris. And not dead inside, either.

The vagina is surrounded by the arms of the clitoris, which fill with blood during arousal. The famous G-spot is also part of that beautiful organ. So yes, there are places in the vagina that feel very good when stimulated.

There is also the simple sensation of desire that occurs during arousal that is anything but simple to describe. Perhaps the most basic way to explain it is to say that many women long for stimulation in that area, and for some, that means penetration.

If there is one male/female analogous sexual desire, I would guess that is it: a man’s desire to be enveloped mirroring a woman’s desire to envelope.

Is it inevitable that I hear from so many women who don’t care that much about penetrative sex? Perhaps the diminished sensitivity in that area (compared to the clitoris) is just not enough for many women to feel that it’s a worthwhile part of sex?

It’s hard for me to imagine that, as much as I love penetrative sex. However, I also know I don’t need it. After all, the best sex I ever had didn’t include even a moment of PIV stimulation.

So I suppose it’s possible to not care about penetration. We are all different. We all have different needs and ways our bodies respond to sexual stimulation.

But I have another theory. I cannot help but wonder if many women haven’t had the opportunity to really find out just how pleasurable penetrative sex can be.

This tends to happen to vagina owners in a phallocentric culture. For god’s sake, that part of our body is literally named for its function in pleasing men — “vagina” is Latin for “sheath,” as in “for the sword (penis).” Excuse us for existing independently of dick, patriarchy!

And then add to that the fact that we condition both men and women to see sex through the lens of how it pleases men. Even the phrase “penetrative sex” is entirely focused on the male perspective. Heaven forbid we call it “envelopmental sex.”

And what’s a good heterosexual couple supposed to do to get off? What’s the “right way” to orgasm? Why, with a man thrusting his dick into a vagina, of course! And magically, both partners will climax at the same time, because as we learn from porn, a woman’s ultimate pleasure is vaginally embracing her partner’s ejaculation — not her own orgasm!

No wonder women aren’t enjoying penetrative — oops, I meant envelopmental — sex.

Can you guess how many lovers I’ve had who asked me how I liked the experience of penetration as he was penetrating me? How many times I’ve been asked things like, “How’s the pace?”, “Does this feel good to you?”, or “Is this too deep?”

Zero. Absolutely zero.

And you know what? If there’s ever a time to ask a woman how she’s doing, it’s during thrusting.

This is an incredibly intimate and vulnerable aspect of the sex act for women, and yet how often does a male lover express care during this time?

And how often does a woman get to decide what happens during thrusting? Isn’t that a juicy question? In my experience, the only time I got to be in charge was in cowboy position (yes, cowboy — when I’m on top, I like to be the man, okay?) …until a lover became frustrated or impatient and lifted me up by the hips in order to hammer into me from below.

Are there vagina owners out there who have consistently felt that they got to dictate what happens during PIV as often as their male lovers? I’d love to know.

And if this has happened to others as often as it has happened to me, why? Why have we so often had to default to men being in charge of this part of sex? For god’s sake, they are literally entering our bodies — shouldn’t we get a 50/50 say in how fast we go, how hard, and how deep?

God help me, how many years did I spend gritting my teeth and trying not to cry out in pain so a lover could have his fun…?

So what would happen if the vagina’s needs were attended to as dutifully as we attend to those of the penis?

During the most significant relationship of my thirties, I had an interesting experience while on top. I was bent over, biting my partner’s shoulder and his penis happened to hit me far back in a place I’m not really sure how to describe, and somehow, instead of hitting my cervix, which I found to be very painful when it occasionally happened, he hit a juicy pocket of pleasure that felt like his dick was about to voluptuously slide right into the literal center of my body and I suddenly had an orgasm that felt like stardust and glitter exploded from between my hips and sprayed into my ribcage and all the way down my legs to my toes.

I thought it was just one of those over-the-top orgasms until I was single in my forties and taking matters into my own hands. One day, I was playing with a favorite sex toy, bent over on my knees, and bam, I found that same spot again, and a few seconds later, felt the same spray of stardust and glitter.

And you can bet your ass I tested out this pleasurable spot again and again to see if I could get the same results…and sure enough, I found it was one of the most reliable orgasm triggers I’ve ever had.

I could go on, sharing my experience of exploring my vagina, but I’ll spare myself the dozens of sexual solicitations that I’ll receive in my email as soon as I publish this — perhaps this is something I’ll save for that OnlyFans account I’m thinking about.

I’ll keep it simple and say that being single in my early forties gave me a gift I could never have imagined: vagina-centric sex that allowed me to literally map the pleasurable landscapes of my body.

It astounds me that prior to that time, a lover had never expressed interest in exploring that with me. Or that I hadn’t thought to insist on such an exploration. It’s hard to think of all the pleasure I “left on the table” over the years.

Is it possible that other women have had this same dearth of opportunity in directing their vaginal experiences, so conditioned to phallocentric sex that we never got the chance to assert our need to explore the pleasures of envelopmental sex?

Look, guys, I’m so sorry to break it to you but jackrabbiting does little to nothing for most vagina owners. And that really shouldn’t surprise you. Who can feel anything in a cave of flesh when something is moving that fast? It’s like The Flash zipping through a row of sheets drying on the laundry line.

Now this might surprise you: so much of the pleasure of PIV sex from a woman’s perspective is the focused sensation of a warm, engorged dick inside us. If you’re moving slowly or not at all, yes, we can feel a lot. We can feel the shape of its tip, feel the tug of flesh as it moves in or out, and even discern its shape and the pleasurable pressure of its angle — not just where it’s landing.

It feels so good to squeeze it when it’s making its way lazily upstream, or try to catch it as it pulls away — something that feels impossible to do when it’s plunging through like a battering ram.

And each section of the vagina has its own particular sensations and embraces which evolve as we become more aroused.

Honestly, the vagina is a goddamn pleasure palace, as far as I’m concerned. But we don’t get to fully utilize or explore it in a phallocentric world. Here, it’s just the “sheath for the sword.”

But what if we decided it was time vaginas take up an equal amount of space in the bedroom? What if we decided we weren’t just going to grit our teeth and endure the thrusting anymore? What if we insisted on having a say in how we experience the dick inside us? Doesn’t that sound entirely reasonable?

What if men got to learn how to map their lover’s vaginas the same way we get to know their sexy little appendages? What if they learned when to pull out the old jackrabbit for everyone’s maximal pleasure? (Because it is fun at the right moment.)

I’m not saying women would magically develop the ability to orgasm only from penetration. But I suspect I’d hear a lot more stories about how satisfying good penetration — envelopment — has become.

© Yael Wolfe 2023

Yael Wolfe is a writer, artist, and photographer. You can find more of her work at yaelwolfe.com.

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