Fraymen and female orgasm

Subject: Survey: Fraymen and female orgasm.
From: Montfort
Date: Jun 11 2005 10:27PM

I read a report of that study in the NYT the other day, and I found myself just shaking my head throughout. While I do believe that one-third of women may not achieve orgasm through intercourse, I don't believe one-third cannot. And I simply do not believe that genetics plays a role in one-third of those failures. Orgasm is too central to sexuality for a genetic anomaly in more than 10 percent of women who don't reach orgasm - that's no longer an anomaly but something closer to a mutation, and I can see no reason for such a mutation.

Having a vital interest in female orgasm - I mean, I really like to see them happen, and it enriches my own experience incredibly much - I likewise can see no good reason that one-third of women in general being unable to reach orgasm during intercourse. I don't recall anything from the study that factored in religion, which to me is fundamental in whether women can reach orgasm - that is, I think religion and its by-product, culture, are the most likely suspects in preventing orgasm by women. I also think they're the most likely suspects in inhibiting men from helping their female partners have orgasms. And I think that probably dates from, oh, Adam and Eve's time, and certainly from the Puritan era and its unfortunately born-again incarnation, the Portestant fundamentalists (it's probably OK for Roman Catholic women to orgasm because they can go to confession and be forgiven). (I would be surprised if fundamentalist Muslim women didn't have an even harder time orgasming, given the inexcusable treatment they suffer at the hands of Muslim men and culture.)

The whole mess isn't helped at all - in fact it's made worse - by wham-bam-fall-asleep men, whom I've never been able to figure out. They're missing about 99 percent of the joy of sex. My orgasm loses almost all of its appeal for me if my lover doesn't have at least one, and preferably many, to accompany me. I find it hard to believe all men don't feel the same way and make sure that their partners are equal participants in orgasm. Well, I've found that females can out-orgasm me by about 20-1 to 50-1, depending on the length of love-making. My lover-for-life can sometimes start orgasm almost immediately and continue it in waves until the end, which comes with mine. Sometimes I think she's going to fry her brain and insides out, but she just smiles beatifically. My own are the typically intense, almost painful they're so pleasurable male orgasms - I don't see how I could have more than one such per session without a rest; I think it would kill me to have more.

So here's a question or two or so for my fellow fraymales who make love with females (you have to be specific these days):

Do you make sure your partner is as orgasmically satisfied as you?

Do you worry or get a little upset if she isn't?

I wonder how many men do what I do, which is get totally involved with their lovers' pussies (OK, I don't know how else to say it, and I like saying that word anyway, but only in private, so it's awkward for me here, but genitalia is too clinical, as are vagina and clitoris, and cunt for me is off-putting). The reason I say this is because I think many women are brought up to regard their bodies with some suspicion if not outright guilt, and if I detect that I want to do something about it - which is get right into it and show her how much I love it. And if she doesn't have such hangups, all the better - maybe I can help her reach for the moon, or Pluto. Betelgeuse.

Of course women can have two basic kinds of orgasm - they are so lucky this way - clitoral and vaginal. I'm not sure if they can combine - I'm told that one kind of mitigates the other, so she prefers to have them separately. The vaginal orgasm to me is the most beautiful because I can be there watching her eyes and her face while our bodies do what they were made to do - and that for me is very often the holiest experience I have in my life bar none, because the feeling of union is overpowering and unmistakeable, and feels so absolutely right. But I also like the clitoral orgasm because, for me at least, it's so damn easy - I mean the cost-effectiveness is just terrific. Regular intercourse can be pretty exhausting sometimes, especially when you're doing it one to four times a day, and after a few days of this I'm just about worn out even if I haven't been surfing or exercising, and usually I have been. But oral sex is both a real break for me and a real treat for her - I can take it relatively easy while she can fry her synapses, get launched into orbit. Sometimes I actually get a little worried that she's getting too high and I'll have to call 911 or something because I'll forget all my CPR training just when I need it. And all from my tongue - but also from my love of her pussy, what it is, how it looks, tastes, feels, most of all what it does.

Is this too graphic? Well, I've never tried to write about this before, so I'm just feeling my way along. Since I never talk with other men about this I have no idea if they have the same experience or awareness I have, and that's why I like the Fray. I suppose some or all of this sounds like some kind of good-sex manual, but I've never read one, seen only a few headlines and subheads here and there in magazines. Mostly what I'm saying just comes from my own experience and my own empathy.

Anyway, what I'm trying to get at here is a man's role in a woman's orgasm. I've found my role to be pivotal, and I totally embrace it, in part because I feel so necessary, and that's a very good and warm feeling for me.

So when it comes to that one-third of women who say they never reach orgasm during intercourse, and the one-third of the one-third in whom the cause is now said may be genetic, I want to say: let me at 'em~! Well now of course that's impossible for a host of reasons, beginning with the death of my relationship and, I'm sure, my own physical death soon after.

But to those women I just want to say: You can have orgasms up the ying-yang. You can learn to love your body and your pussy. You can learn how to have orgasms of different kinds and varying intensities. You can teach your lover what you need and want. You can learn to talk to him, you can learn not to be afraid to let him know your needs and desires, you can take him into your most private confidence and show him your world, the two of you can learn together. To their men I want to say: don't be afraid of a pussy, learn to see its beauty and its power, that little pink thing is so incredibly rich in potential that it is absolutely amazing, and it's something you should not dismiss or shun or shy away from. And there's more, of course, because sex is in the mind, and the gate to the mind is the eyes, look into her eyes, whisper into her ears, whisper a phrase or two of a much-loved romantic song or poem, whatever comes into your mind, most of all develop your empathic power so you can sense without words what's going on with her, where she is, what's needed from you, what's about to happen so you can time your own actions. I think any normal man would love to know these things and feel able and necessary to give you what you need, and would learn that his own experience would be exalted beyond his wildest dreams.

Sorry if this sounds naive or corny or old-hat. It's just that my heart goes out to those women, and even to their men, and I wanted to say something, maybe something I say will somehow find its way back to one of them, directly or by repetition or whatever... ah well ...

I think I'm gonna post this without previewing or I may not post it at all ...

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Subject: you fail to satisfy me
From: hiztoria
Date: Jun 12 2005 8:01AM

The study compared identical to non-identical twins so your protestations that orgasm failure is not a bit genetic but all cultural fall flat. The study is about orgasm during intercourse not about the oral techniques you describe. The study was done on British women who are not the most repressed women in the world so your admonitions against religion also seem off the mark (British women are less religious than American). Lastly the study certainly did not say all 33% of women who fail or have great difficulty with coital intercourse fail *because* of genes. Specifically the study said 34% of the failure cannot be attributed to cultural differences. (And 45% of the failure to orgasm while masturbating is not related to cultural.)

Your good sex manual seems fairly accurate but is a bit misguided on this issue (it seems you got a little too excited writing it, lol). Yours is a macho stance (it's buttered up with feminist make-her-feel-good propaganda but it's still macho) that if it was only the right man, or with the right techinque, or "if it was only me," 99% women could have orgasm. Well this is bunk, it's doubtful that you, or any man, has given more than 2/3 of the women they've been with consistent coital screaming jeebies.

That female orgasm (during intercourse) has such high evolutionary fitness benefits that anything else must be a 'mutation' is just speculation. You're just projecting from your own experience. When facts challenge the speculation (as this study does), one must be able to give up the speculation. A recent book by (reviewed here [slate.msn.com]) postulates that female orgasm is not a result of any direct fitness but the byproduct of the clitoris's embryological homology with a penis glans. I find some problems with that argument and speculate [fray.slate.msn.com] myself that vaginal orgasm could be a byproduct of its relation to child-birth.

But one think we do know is that just because something appears to be bad fitness (like failure to achive orgasm) doesn't make it a rarity on par with random mutation. Take any number of human illness. Osteoperosis, prostate cancer, sickle-cell anemia. Take alcoholism - why are 30% of young men addicts? Can't be because of the high fitness of non-addiction.

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Subject: RE: you don't fail to misquote me
From: Montfort
Date: Jun 12 2005 11:58AM

your protestations that orgasm failure is not a bit genetic but all cultural

I defy you to reread my post and point out to me where I said that. You cannot, because I did not.

What I did was question the validity of the percentage of women who cannot achieve orgasm in intercourse - I said I don't believe one-third of women cannot do so. I also questioned the validity of the claim that one-third of such inability to reach orgasm in intercourse is attributable to genetics. Nowhere did I say that it's impossible; my meaning, which I think was clear, was that there is probably some percentage of women in each category but I don't believe either category is so large as it's made out to be.

Whatever the religious views of British women are, religion had its impact over centuries in Britain, as it has elsewhere in the Christian West. Have you ever heard the phrase, "Lie back and think of England"? Have you ever heard the phrase "stiff upper lip"? Have you ever read about the prudery of the Victorian English? Religion and culture are inextricably intertwined, and the fact that British women are not so religious now doesn't negate the long-term impact of religion on the culture that creates them.

You might call my thoughts about the role of the male in the female orgasm "macho" - but then, I am a male, and I wrote this primarily for males because we never talk about such things in person, and I wouldn't know whom to broach the topic with anyway.

And again - this time by virtually accusing me of thinking myself the world's greatest lover who can bring any woman to orgasm in intercourse - you mischaracterize what I said, which was plainly, very plainly, that the male plays a role in the female orgasm (the implication being that the female plays a role in the male orgasm) and that both partners are in this together, that they must communicate to one another what they need and want and what works and what doesn't.

If you can in good conscience say it's "macho" for me to express my full involvement in my partner's body and her pleasure, to say her pleasure is a determinant of my own (and again the reverse is implied), and to say that I've learned to watch and feel and reach out, to become an empath in lovemaking - well, then, I think you need some self-examination. I may be ham-handed in my self-expression, but it is as honest and as forthright as I can make it with virtually no experience in such expression outside of the bedroom. I don't think I can say the same for your self-expression, which seems to me more knee-jerk and dismissive - imagine, a man trying to talk about female orgasm! - than honest and insightful.