The Mistake That’s Costing Us So Much Pleasure

Heterosexual sex could be so much better if men and women dropped these two false assumptions

I am a woman who knows that the world is full of good men. Sure, some men are rotten, but in my experience, most men, especially when snuggled up to a warm body, strive to be kind and generous.

It’s that basic goodness, and a deep desire to please, that I suspect is the culprit for a misunderstanding that is depriving heterosexual couples of so much pleasure.

I live in a country where English is not the spoken language, but where the two English words “gentleman” and “egoist” have both entered the lexicon. The definition of “gentleman” here is a man who makes sure his partner orgasms before he does. The definition of “egoist” is a man who does not.

Good men let their lovers climax first.

Right?

Wrong.

This is a misconception, the first of two I’m tackling today. Its roots reach way back to the olden days, when it was taboo to discuss sex for pleasure, and it comes down to the fundamental belief that good sex only happens when men can stay hard long enough for both parties to orgasm.

It’s heterosexual couples who struggle with this misconception because our bodies are different from our partners’. We manage a different set of stimuli, and get turned on and turned off by different triggers.

If you are a good-hearted, consenting, heterosexual lover, who believes that the owners of both sets of arms and legs entwined in sweet embrace can know great pleasure and deserve to know great pleasure, then I want you to join me in challenging this assumption, held since time immemorial.

Let me ask you…

Do you remember when you learned this basic idea? It was likely in a locker room somewhere, or implied in steamy movie scenes, or graphically displayed by your favorite porn star.

The belief that good sex is dependent on a hard dick is held equally by heterosexual men and women. Tragically, it’s most taken to heart by the good guys, who want their partners to experience as much pleasure during sex as they do.

The Cost: Linking Arousal and Anxiety

You might be surprised to be reading a female sex writer, who has written graphically elsewhere about my many types of orgasm, challenging this basic known tenet of good sex.

I can almost hear the sweet cries “No!” from my female readers…

“What is she doing!? We’ve worked so hard to teach our men that they have to stay hard long enough to let us finish.”

Well ladies, here is the problem with this basic assumption built into the definition of good heterosexual sex:

Demanding that men manage their pleasure in such a way that will give us the time we need to orgasm vaginally weaves anxiety into sex for men. It means that your lover experiences each brush of your fingertips, each dip of your pelvis, as both a source of arousal and simultaneously, as a source of anxiety, because it might make him cum too soon. When we make this demand of our men, sex can no longer be only about their pleasure. It is half about enjoyment and half about mitigating enjoyment. It puts him at war with himself, causing him to act as both coach and referee in the game of his life.

It puts him at war with himself, causing him to act as both coach and referee in the game of his life.

By now, I hope I have you dumbfounded, wondering:

“But, don’t women need an erect penis to orgasm vaginally….?”

The answer to this question is yes, sometimes. But, jumping into bed expecting that we do is our second mistake, because guess what…It’s not actually true, and when we stop and listen to women, when we center their bodies and their stories in the bedroom, we remember that fact of basic biology. Just ask lesbians.

When we stop and listen to women, when we center their bodies and their stories in the bedroom, we remember this fact of basic biology. Just ask lesbians.

When we take a step back, defining the goal of consensual sex as being as much pleasure as possible for both parties involved, and consider how women’s bodies actually work, we can see that establishing an erect penis as the prerequisite for good sex is a bad idea, because it puts too many men at war with their bodies and because — here’s the kicker!! — Only 25% of women reliably orgasm during vaginal intercourse.

When we multiply that number, 25% of women by the number of men who easily can get and keep an erection for the length of time it takes to satisfy those lucky women, the result is a number that is far too low to be the baseline definition of good sex (though, if you’re in your mid-twenties, love yourself, your body and your partner, knock yourselves out! We’re happy for you, and we’ll see you on the other side, after aging, life and kids happen…).

I have been blessed with a lot of great sex in my life, and I’ll admit, as a woman who does orgasm during vaginal sex, it’s a beautiful thing, especially on those rare and blessed occasions when it happens simultaneous to my partner’s orgasm. But, I assure you, orgasm during vaginal intercourse is not the most real kind of orgasm a woman can have; it’s not the best kind, the deepest kind, the most transcendent kind.

Setting climax during vaginal sex as the holy grail of sex is an outdated patriarchal belief that confuses female pleasure with male pleasure.

In truth, men’s and women’s bodies are different, and our paths to orgasm are as different as we are. In challenging this basic misconception of heterosexual sex, we allow men to be men and women to be women, both of our bodies known and celebrated for their respective intricacies.

How did We Get Here?

We could blame the porn industry for the misconception (because really, you can always blame the porn industry…), but in this case, porn is serving to reinforce an error; it didn’t create it. While it does give us infinite hours of footage that school us in countless lies about good sex, in this case, they’re not the ones to blame.

We could also blame religion, because really, it’s even more fun to blame religion than it is to blame the porn industry. Religion is a little bit at fault here because it has forced us to define good sex as being for procreation only.

And, that’s fair. Everyone has to play for their own team. If you’re on the team that only wants to have sex the number of times that equals the amount of children that you want to raise, then more power to you! I wish you much fertile success and a life rich with other pleasures.

Prizing orgasm as a result of vaginal sex is an inherited bias from the time that religion determined our world view.

Prizing orgasm as a result of vaginal sex is an inherited bias from the time that religion determined our world view. Vaginal sex makes babies, not pleasure. And, even there, though there is a bit of data that demonstrates that conception is more likely to take place when the woman orgasms during vaginal sex (men, did you know that desire for sex can skyrocket in women during pregnancy?), it’s not required.

I’ve already made my babies. I am here for pleasure. I believe that sex is a gift, the very greatest gift, designed by Mother Nature herself to be deeply pleasurable. It is a portal to all of the good things. All of them; and it’s supposed to feel really good. Orgasm is the most effective, freest way to regulate your brain-based pleasure, relaxation and well-being systems, and I want you to have as many as possible.

So, if you’re on my team, and if you are a free, consenting, self-aware adult who wants as much pleasure in sex as possible, then it is crucial that you unravel the knot of misconceptions that have ensnared good men and women everywhere. The foundation of great sex is the sweet play that is the giving and taking of pleasure, not any single body part.

Keep reading…Part II: The Key to Kicking Stress Out of the Bedroom