Why Are Female Orgasms Still a Mystery?

Is a communication gap contributing to the orgasm gap?

I keep hearing about the traditional heterosexual post-intercourse conversation that apparently starts out with the male partner asking the female partner: Did you come?

I’ve heard this more and more over the years and I still find myself surprised that this is even a thing. No man has ever asked me that before. Even when I was an insanely repressed 19-year-old who tried to hide her orgasms from her partner out of shame and embarrassment, I would let him know when he beat me to climax, with the hope that he would help me out in other ways.

As I became more able to express myself in the bedroom, there was absolutely no mystery about whether or not I had an orgasm. What can I say other than that I express my pleasure — loudly.

I realize there are women who aren’t as expressive — maybe quieter and/or less physically emotive. But surely there is some kind of communication going on before the male partner orgasms to indicate where things stand for the female partner…?

I’ve said before that I think it’s good manners to let a guy know when you’re getting close to an orgasm. However…as nice as that would be, when I’m getting close, I can barely put two words together. It’s extremely rare that I can form a sentence, even one as simple as “I’m gonna come.”

And more importantly, when I shift from experiencing pleasure to announcing where I stand in the journey toward orgasm, that orgasm tends to go skittering away from me, like when you bend down to pick up a pretty pebble that caught your eye, but your clumsy foot kicks it out from under your fingers as you step forward.

So that little gem of etiquette just isn’t possible for all of us, unfortunately.

If we’re not communicating with words, then, what is the body language we are missing?

I know it’s tricky. I can’t speak for a man’s experience with arousal and orgasm, obviously, but I’m guessing it’s like climbing a mountain — you go straight up, hit the top, and come straight down. Whereas a woman’s journey to orgasm is more like trekking through a series of hills and valleys until you finally head up the Matterhorn and hope you’ll reach the peak.

In other words, I’m very aware that we women have moments during sex in which we get super juiced up by the stimulation, make more aggressive noises and move around more, all of which might be mistaken for orgasm, and then we settle down a bit until the stimulation shifts again. And then we climb up another hill and that might seem like an orgasm, and then we come down a bit and…

I remember in the beginning of my last relationship worrying constantly that every time I moaned or growled “Oh my god,” or made a gasping little cry, that he would think I was climaxing. In hindsight, I wish I had talked him through my “process” a bit beforehand, in the spirit of giving him a leg up in knowing my body and taking some pressure off him to recognize my particular signals.

Though admittedly, I had never really paid attention to the way my body behaved before and during orgasm until I was with him. Like a lot of women in my generation, I was taught to take whatever I could get in the bedroom and try to be fast about it, because my partners weren’t going to be able to “hold off” forever. I can’t say that I paid much attention to my body with previous lovers other than to try to remain laser-focused on orgasm so I could finish “in time.”

Suddenly, with my new long-term partner, I was hyper-aware of both of our bodies as we explored each other again and again. I still remember the night he froze beneath me just as I was about to come and then immediately resumed what he had been doing. It registered somewhere in the back of my mind that he knew I was going to climax, and I realized it was because I was holding my breath.

From that night on, I started to pay attention to my sounds, my breath, my body. Sure enough, as I got close to orgasm, my breath would catch in my throat for just a moment and then return to normal. Then it would catch again, longer the second time. And then again and again… Usually by the fourth or fifth time, I would hold it for quite a while, and then the orgasm would hit.

He said later that he should have noticed before — it’s such a glaring series of silences in the midst of all my moaning and grunting.

He said that I did the same thing with my fingers that I did with my breath — I’d start digging my fingers into his shoulders, arms, or ass in rhythmic cycles of squeezes and releases, giving him one last, really hard grab before orgasm.

And of course, he said, my noises helped him when he wasn’t sure if he had read the other signals correctly. Yes, I’d make a lot of exclamations throughout the process that early on, he thought might be orgasms, but he learned soon enough that when I come, I make a such a racket, it’s impossible to mistake what’s happening.

He also said that, on occasion, he could feel or see my orgasm. He said if he stopped thrusting during my orgasm he could fully pay attention to the way my body clutched at him, the way I contracted on the inside, but also how my legs and ass squeezed together. When he was going down on me, or fingering me, he said he could see the contractions between my legs — even my ass and thighs would visibly tighten and release.

Over the years, he noticed even more of my climax-related tics, like the way I would suddenly jerk forward or back as if someone just hit me with an electric current, or the way my legs would violently tremble as if I was losing control of my body.

Umm, yeah, I was losing control…

When I knew I wasn’t going to make it to orgasm, I always told him. I didn’t want him to wait for that cycle of breathing and clutching fingers. I’m very pragmatic when it comes to sex and never saw much use in drawing things out if I knew I wasn’t going to get there. Why not let him go on and enjoy himself?

And he would, though he was a stubborn man. When he was done, he would give me one more try with his fingers — he knew I liked that — and almost always, without the pressure of feeling like I was taking too long, I could finally come.

It was harder for him to read the signals when he was using his fingers. He said I was quieter and didn’t move around much. But I still either held my breath or grabbed at his arm, and when I was climaxing, I made sounds and moved in a way that alerted him to what I was experiencing.

I understand that the female orgasm can be mysterious. As I mentioned, we might make lots of sounds and movements that might lead one to believe we’re climaxing, when in fact, we’re just experiencing a peak of pleasure that will momentarily ebb. And some women are quiet and less expressive.

Let’s not forget that porn is of absolutely no help in this arena, when the actresses sound and look like they are in perpetual climax in response to moves that would never get a woman off.

Maybe the mystery, diversity, and unrealistic representations are what created the Did you come? moment. And please don’t misunderstand me — I think it’s the height of politeness to ask this question and I appreciate any man who cares enough to do so.

But where’s the disconnect? Are women not being communicative enough? Is the unreality of porn making it harder to navigate the nuances in a real-life sexual encounter? Are we moving so fast that we aren’t noticing the details and behaviors of each other’s bodies?

Or am I missing the point completely, and Did you come? is reserved for casual encounters in which you aren’t really invested in learning someone’s tics — which makes slightly more sense to me. Though, still…

Are we failing to communicate either in words or body language? If we’re quiet or less physically demonstrative than some, should we be offering this information up at some point — “I’m coming,” or “I came,” or…?

And here’s something else to ponder: Should he ask after he’s finished or before? Why do so many of my friends tell me that their male partners climax before they are even close to finishing and only when he’s done does he ask about her pleasure. What is that about?

I don’t think it’s unreasonable to argue that even in a casual hookup, there should be a responsibility to each other to pay attention and try to give one another as much pleasure as possible. Isn’t that the whole point?

So I’m left to wonder: Are women’s orgasms truly that mysterious or is this more a failure of communication?

© Yael Wolfe 2020