Howl

The Revolutionary Act of Pursuing Female Sexual Fulfillment

Women deserve to shamelessly pursue their orgasms

When I was 19 and decided to have sex for the first time, I had no clue what I was doing or what to expect. I knew which parts were supposed to go where. I knew it might hurt. And I knew not to expect an orgasm. Everything else was a mystery to me.

You could say that I was extremely lucky in that experience. My boyfriend at the time was always gentle in the bedroom. He was also a virgin and didn’t know what he was doing, and we didn’t speak a word to one another the entire time, but he was sweet, it didn’t hurt, I didn’t bleed, and yes, I had an orgasm.

I’m a pretty tenacious person when it comes to my sexuality. Despite the fact that I struggled deeply with shame, I was also determined to experience orgasm as much as possible. I don’t know where this determination came from, but something deep inside me told me not to accept the messages I had heard so many times:

• Women aren’t as sexual as men.
• Women don’t need orgasms as much as men.
• It’s difficult for women to achieve orgasm.
• Women shouldn’t expect to be satisfied in the bedroom every time.

I never believed in those stories, no matter how prevalent they were. I couldn’t express my sexuality without shame, but I knew it was a strong force in me. I thought about sex constantly from very early puberty — usually to the point of distraction. I loved giving myself orgasms. And except for a few periods in my life in which I could not control my anxiety and depression, I often needed one or two orgasms every single day.

When people warned me to keep my sexual expectations low, I wanted to scream. I knew no one was saying that to my boyfriend. I knew every sexual encounter we had would begin with the expectation of his orgasm and end with the achievement of it.

Where was that attitude for me and my pleasure?

So there we were, awkwardly maneuvering ourselves in missionary — again, neither of us speaking a word. You could’ve heard a pin drop. It’s unimaginable for me to remember that silent, skittish little bunny, knowing the racket I make now.

With all my inexperience and sexual shame, I couldn’t ask him to do anything. That wasn’t even an option. But again, I was determined to have an orgasm — there’s no way I was just going to lie there and hope for the best.

As he moved, I pressed against the mattress with my feet and very, very slowly lifted my hips up, hoping he wouldn’t notice this brazen display of desire. (God forbid.) As I moved, I noticed the sensations in my body, and where he was hitting against my clit and I kept adjusting myself, my hips higher, my body scooting down, until…bingo.

I realized after that first time that this relationship was going to be a bit of a challenge. I knew he was struggling to figure out how to please me. And I was so shy, I couldn’t talk to him about it. I foresaw a whole lot of wiggling and scooting in my future if I didn’t do something about it.

My solution was, of course, research. If I have a problem, my response is always to head to the library (or Google). I get such a kick out of remembering my repressed, shame-filled little 19-year-old self walking brazenly out of the library with a stack of books on how to be a good lover. Yep. That’s me in a nutshell.

I was so excited when I got home and started reading the books. I learned things about hand jobs that made a future lover very, very happy. I also learned more about myself and my body than I had ever learned before.

One of those precious items of knowledge I gleaned was about the coital alignment technique (CAT). Oh, I thought. That’s what I was doing that first night together — I was instinctively trying to get into this position so I could get some clit stimulation.

I get such a kick out of remembering my repressed, shame-filled little 19-year-old self walking brazenly out of the library with a stack of books on how to be a good lover.

Why, I wondered, hadn’t anyone told me this stuff? There are so many ways to make it easier for a woman to achieve orgasm — why didn’t someone give me a list of things to try when I first became sexually active, instead of telling me, “Don’t expect much”??

Throughout my life, I was always an avid, let’s say, “sex researcher.” I’ve always had a collection of books on sexual techniques and female anatomy and physiology. It was not at all unusual for one of these books to fall out of my bag on occasion, causing a bit of a stir when someone noticed my Ultimate Guide to Hand Jobs lying there on the floor.

Basically, I was the Hermione Granger of sex.

I did this not just out of curiosity — but because I knew I had to. I knew no one was going to tell me how to find satisfaction in the bedroom. I knew I had to find it on my own.

I wasn’t going to buy into the ideas that people had been telling me. I had a strong sex drive. I felt like I had every right to experience orgasm on a regular basis. I wasn’t interested in the story that I should expect less than that.

Many years and many books later, I’m still learning. There are still so many things about sex that I don’t know. There are even things about my own body that I don’t know. And what’s worse, I don’t know what I don’t know, so I can’t “Hermione” the problem by looking something up.

But I do know how to reliably get myself off with and without a partner. It is very rare that I lost an orgasm with my last partner. In seven years, I think we had sex maybe seven or eight times in which I couldn’t — or didn’t want to — come. Even when I couldn’t come during penetration, I learned to ask him to help me get there with his hands or mouth when he was done.

Considering how often we had sex (we both had a pretty high drive), my seven or eight non-climactic experiences seem pretty damn amazing over the course of seven years. And I want to emphasize that I do not think this is aspirational or unrealistic. I think women can orgasm regularly. I think women should orgasm regularly (if they want to).

I do know how to reliably get myself off with and without a partner.

I’m going to make a wild assertion that a large factor in the orgasm gap is the fact that we’ve been taught that orgasms are hard for women to achieve and that we shouldn’t expect to get there every time.

Umm…fuck that.

We are looking at this all wrong. We keep comparing the female sexual experience to the male sexual experience. We cannot afford to contextualize the orgasmic experience by centering it around men.

As far as I know, yes, it is relatively easy for a penis to achieve orgasm, though with some exceptions. (Guys, please forgive my generalization and feel free to politely correct me if I’m wrong. I rarely speak about men’s experience, because obviously, I am not a man.)

The female orgasm should not be looked at through this lens or in any way that compares it to the male orgasm. The female orgasm is its own beautiful journey — similar, yet totally different.

The female orgasm takes coaxing and play and specific inducements. The female orgasm needs a little bit of wooing, a little bit of seduction. The female orgasm needs precision and focus.

None of these things makes a female orgasm “hard” to achieve. Different. Not hard.

The female orgasm is its own beautiful journey…

And yes, sex can be lovely without an orgasm. The last thing I want is to imply that sex should be orgasm-focused. I don’t believe that, at all.

But I do believe women should have higher expectations for the realization of their pleasure. I do believe we need to stop comparing female orgasms to male orgasms and stop spreading the sexist belief that women don’t need orgasms as much as men do.

We deserve this pleasure, too. We need it, too. And when we know what we’re doing, when we feel safe, supported, and empowered, it’s not necessarily difficult to get there.

So here we are in 2019 and I have come to discover that many people don’t know what CAT is. People like Emma Austin and Holly Bradshaw recently wrote empowering pieces about their discovery of this technique.

I’m thrilled that they are putting their voices out there and sharing this knowledge, but I feel frustrated, too. It’s been twenty years since I learned about CAT. Why are we still failing to pass along an “orgasm playbook” to women so that every one of us enters the bedroom with a toolbox full of reliable paths to orgasm?

I can’t help but think there is some failure on my own part in this. Until now, when did I put myself out there and share what I knew with my female friends and family members? (Okay, there was that one time I taught my sister how to give a good hand job, but that’s about all I managed to do in the past twenty years…)

Thankfully, these two young ladies are doing what I failed to do. I’m so proud of both of them for so honestly sharing their stories and advocating for the expression and achievement of female sexual pleasure.

But I also think our culture has done them, me, and all women a disservice by failing to support our sexual fulfillment the way it does for men. (Although, to be fair, it often fails men, too.)

Every woman deserves to walk into her first sexual experience knowing typical triggers for female orgasm that might work for her.

Every woman deserves to engage in sex knowing that her orgasm is as attainable as a male partner’s — just in a different way.

Every woman deserves to have the importance of her orgasm acknowledged, instead of sidelined as a “hopeful but not expected outcome.”

I think this is one of the greatest acts of revolution a female can make at this time in history: Boldly insisting on her right to experience sexual fulfillment as often as she pleases.

And let’s remember to keep sharing. Keep talking to one another. Be open.

Let’s show the next generation that pursuing our sexual fulfillment is part of our birthright as human beings.

© Yael Wolfe 2019

Read about Emma’s and Holly’s experiences here: