Howl
Why Is It So Hard for Women to Receive Pleasure?
Examining our culture’s persistent dismissal of female satisfaction
Trigger warning: Brief mention of suicide.
When I first started dating Lee, I was surprised by how much attention he paid to my orgasms. That was always his go-to — not to make out, not to cuddle, not to get me to give him a blow job. Nope, he wanted to give me orgasms.
He took genuine pleasure in my orgasms. He liked to watch my face, listen to the sounds I made.
This was a stark contrast to every other man I’d been with.
It was deeply uncomfortable to be with Lee the beginning, who often fingered me while we were making out and encouraged me to have an orgasm, even without expecting me to return the favor. For weeks, I could not let go enough to do it.
I just wasn’t used to it. I had only been with men who hoarded pleasure, who had no interest in my own pleasure, who withheld pleasure from me. It felt unnatural to be with someone who wanted to please me.
All too often, I closed my legs to his advances, pulling his hand away, apologizing that I just couldn't relax enough. He assumed I was nervous and patiently kept trying until one day, while draped across his lap with all my clothes still on, his hand just inside the waistband of my pants, one finger gently thrumming my clit, I somehow managed to let go and had the tiniest of orgasms.
I surprised myself by laughing out loud when it was over. He looked very satisfied, of course, but I was more enthralled with my own accomplishment — I had finally allowed myself to receive.
Why is it so hard for women to receive?
There are a lot of reasons, I suspect, including the underlying misogyny of our culture. One of the biggest factors is, undoubtedly, the way we were taught to be women in this society. Women are supposed to be the givers. We’re supposed to take care of our men and our babies, even at our own expense. We’re supposed to take care of the home and take care of everyone’s emotional needs.
Yes, men have their own culturally-created burdens to bear that affect their ability to receive, but right now, I’m talking about women. I’m talking about how so many of us were taught not to ask for much in the bedroom. To not expect a male partner to do a fair share of the housework. To not ask for help. To set aside our own emotional needs in order to tend to someone else’s. And to give until it hurts.
Women are supposed to be the givers. We’re supposed to take care of our men and our babies, even at our own expense.
That’s what I did.
I kept the bar low in every situation: work, love, sex, family, friendships. I always pursued jobs that paid me less than I was worth, worked overtime without reporting it on my time sheet, did 99% of the chores when I lived with my partner, always put other people’s emotional needs ahead of mine, took time out of my day to drive my car-less friends around town so they wouldn’t have to wait for the bus, and never expected my needs to be met in the bedroom.
What really pains me to remember is how I responded to the mental health crises I struggled with a few times in my life — how instead of pursuing help, I dove deeper into giving. For instance, when I was dealing with a suicidal period in my late twenties, instead of trying to find counseling or even leaning on friends and family for support, I started volunteering as a teen mentor.
In a way, it was a good plan — I knew I wouldn’t hurt myself if someone was counting on me. But also, it saddens me that even in a crisis like that, I couldn’t give myself permission to need help and receive it.
There are few things in my life that I regret so deeply that I wish I could change, but this is certainly one of them. If I could, I would go back to these mental health crises, stand in front of my younger self, hold my arms out wide in a defensive posture and say, “Nope! We’re taking a break now. We’re going to go to bed and resting. And then we’re going to get help. And then we’ll be happy to take visitors who are willing to bring love and care. That’s all we’ll be doing for the next six months, so if you need something — come back later.”
When you get used to living this way, it becomes hard to accept good things that happen. It makes me uncomfortable when people give me big gifts or offer to do large favors for me. As I mentioned earlier, it was (and still will be, no doubt) hard for me to accept sexual pleasure from a partner without feeling guilty or anxious.
It feels more natural for me to struggle through things on my own. To not accept too much pleasure and definitely not too much love.
When my last relationship ended, I dealt with it much the way I had always dealt with hardships — completely alone. I threw myself into a new job and worked insane hours for so little money. It kept my mind off my pain and the fact that I didn’t know how to reach out and ask for help.
It feels more natural for me to struggle through things on my own. To not accept too much pleasure and definitely not too much love.
Not long later, when I discovered that a nonprofit program I’d been involved in wanted to offer me an incredible deal on the mortgage for a tiny house that was currently being built because a) I was single and it was too small a house for a normal family and b) they were impressed with all the work I’d done in my community in the past 15 years, I was floored. And scared. The idea of taking advantage of such a huge opportunity felt wrong, somehow. I was supposed to give. Not take.
It doesn’t surprise me that within months of moving in here, I developed a mysterious medical problem that has caused me chronic pain and extreme mental and emotional stress. Sometimes, I wonder if my body couldn’t handle receiving such a big gift and decided that I’d have to pay for it in a different way.
My health issue involves some problems with my left breast. This doesn’t surprise me in the slightest.
For one thing, this is the area of the body that symbolizes the heart center. It literally is the heart center. It isn’t the slightest bit surprising to me that I’d develop a health problem in this area a few years after the worst heartbreak of my life.
This is also a major pleasure center for me, sexually speaking. Honestly, if you asked where the height of my sexual pleasure comes from, I don’t know if I could pick between my clitoris and my left nipple. Ms. Lefty is my “orgasm nipple,” as I call her. She’s got some pretty sweet wiring that can blow the top of my head off in ways even my clit can’t.
So yes, it makes total sense to me that I’m having issues with my heart center and my pleasure center. I’d already had an incredibly hard time receiving before the breakup. But after he left me for a twenty year old? It was pretty hard to convince myself that I deserved love or pleasure at that point.
It isn’t the slightest bit surprising to me that I’d develop a health problem in this area a few years after the worst heartbreak of my life.
Fast forward a few years and I’ve actually healed a lot of the pain from that breakup. I still have a long way to go, but I no longer feel that I don’t deserve pleasure. Love, I don’t know, but I think I’ve talked myself into believing that hell yes, I deserve pleasure.
I had hoped that with this realization might come either healing or at least clarity when it comes to my health issue. Sadly, it has not.
About a month ago, however, I made an interesting discovery. While listening to a podcast on the energetic body, the host mentioned that the left side of the body is the receptive side. She mentioned that if you want to use healing stones or other instruments in your meditation practice that you should always hold them in your left hand to facilitate the receiving of the energy into your body.
Ah. Yes. I’m sick in the side of my body that receives.
Hearing that was so emotionally heavy that I had to sit down and take a breath. Because I realized then just how serious this is. I literally don’t know how to receive.
I think I knew this instinctively for a long time. For a year now, I’ve been having sexual fantasies that center on my pleasure. Instead of imagining all the things I want to do to a lover, I imagine what I want him or her to do to me.
I want massages. I want deep kisses. I want fingers through my hair. I want orgasms. I want pancakes afterwards…
One particular fantasy keeps arising in which a lover spends an inordinate amount of time attending to my left breast. Time stands still in these fantasies and I just see him or her stroking it, holding it, massaging it, kissing it, sucking on it, nibbling at it… Hours and hours of them pouring loving attention onto this part of my body.
The idea of that feels so healing to me.
And yet, my gut tells me that the only way to break this pattern is not to wait for a lover to do this for me. I have to do it for myself.
For a year now, I’ve been having sexual fantasies that center on my pleasure. Instead of imagining all the things I want to do to a lover, I imagine what I want him or her to do to me.
This is extraordinarily hard for me. How do you break such a long habit? How do you give yourself pleasure when you’ve spent your life denying yourself?
I don’t have the answer, except to chip away at it in the most mundane of ways.
For instance, I had a hankering for apple pie the other day — so I made myself one, from scratch (crust and all) and it was divine. I let myself curl up in bed on cold days and work in a pile of blankets. And I keep whittling away at all the tasks I left undone when I moved into this house so that by the end of the winter, it’ll feel more comfortable and cozy.
In my heart, I no longer believe that we have to work hard to earn pleasure — my instincts tell me that pleasure is a natural part of the human experience (as is suffering).
What we women have to work for, I suspect, is removing our barriers to receiving it — in and out of the bedroom.
This article was written for Howl by Yael Wolfe, a weekly column. © Yael Wolfe 2020
More instinct from Howl by Yael Wolfe: