BAKER-OOOH LINE

Are you fucking kidding me, mate?’ you think as you lie in bed, eyes fixed on the ceiling, your sexual teammate floating on a postcoital high before putting a perfunctory stop to proceedings with the question, ‘What do you think about Singapore noodles for dinner?’ It all started so well; the middle finger moving deftly in circular then vertical strokes until your torso reverberated like a tuning fork. This, you told yourself, was going to be good. And yet here you are – horny, frustrated and not in the least thinking about the delicacies at the local Chinese. Yes, it’s a story so clichéd and tired you figure it can’t possibly be true, but it turns out, despite it being 2017 and all, orgasm inequality is still a thing. And – shocker – straight women are those most likely to go without. Researchers at Chapman University in the US surveyed more than 25,000 couples and found that, while 95% of heterosexual men reported regularly orgasming during ‘sexually intimate moments’ (when else?), heterosexual women clocked in at a measly 65%. Go figure. ‘We expected to find an orgasm gap between men and women,’ says lead author Dr David Frederick. ‘Largely because men frequently report higher sex drives than women, so there tends to be a number of “quickie” experiences during which a female orgasm isn’t the end goal.’ What a treat. So far, so much potential for man-bashing. But actually, that isn’t the full story. Lesbian participants reported regularly owning the big O 21% more often than their straight sisters, but that number is still lower than what straight men are enjoying – which suggests that there’s something more fundamental than an eager (read: selfish) male partner leaving us females at a disadvantage. So what’s the real deal?

MISSION IMPOSSIBLE

When it comes to orgasms, biology’s a raging chauvinist. First off, from an evolutionary perspective, it doesn’t really matter whether you orgasm or not – no amount of female excitement is going to make a baby. And because your orgasm isn’t a procreation deal-breaker, biology’s never had a real incentive to streamline the means by which you get there. Ergo, while men are set to climax from pretty much whatever they get up to, your orgasm calls for a more specific, personalised process. Hence lesbians trailing behind men, too. Scientists aren’t even sure what actually happens when we come. ‘The main distinguishing feature is a series of eight to 12 contractions that occur throughout the pelvis, starting 0.8 seconds apart for the first two, then getting longer between each of the subsequent ones,’ explains leading US orgasm researcher Dr Nicole Prause. They’re accompanied by a flurry of activity in the brain between four key feel-good neurotransmitters: dopamine, vasopressin, oxytocin and kisspeptin (aw). Bring it on. Dr Frederick’s data suggests that a combination of deep kissing, oral sex and, er, ‘manual stimulation’ is the winning formula. As for hands-free penis-in-vagina sexual intercourse? That doesn’t work for almost two thirds of women. ‘We know 85% of women need their clitoris or outer lips of their vagina stimulated to reach orgasm,’ adds Dr Laurie Mintz, author of Becoming Cliterate*, ‘because that’s where your touch-sensitive nerve endings are found.’ It’s likely that you’re already aware of this, thanks to your solo explorations – Dr Mintz says just 1.2% of women insert something into their vagina when they masturbate. So, if the quest for o-quality is simply a case of targeted effort, why hasn’t the equilibrium been achieved yet? Well, it’s not only physiological preferences we’re up against. Society continues to reinforce the idea that the end goal of having any kind of sex is to make a man come. ‘Throughout Western history, there’s never been a time when most people value women’s ways of reaching orgasm as much as men’s,’ says Dr Mintz. ‘So we need to overturn centuries of belief that intercourse is most important.’ In fact, she argues that, as a culture, our understanding of female pleasure has been in retrograde since the 1960s sexual revolution. ‘Forty years ago, a man knew he needed to stimulate a woman’s clitoris for her to reach orgasm,’ she says. ‘But that approach has gone underground now everything in our culture teaches

‘WE NEED TO OVERTURN CENTURIES OF BELIEF THAT INTERCOURSE IS THE MOST IMPORTANT PART OF SEX’

that sex equals penetration.’ Sure, porn has played a titanic role in making us all think a thorough pounding is all it takes to propel women into ecstasy, but Dr Mintz says that romcom sex also reinforces this script, thanks to all those scenes that depict women getting off via penetration – just as their man offloads, of course. ‘Just think how we use “intercourse” and “sex” interchangeably,’ she says. ‘This dismisses all the other forms of sex as foreplay; a perfunctory act before the main event.’

TIGHT-LIPPED

So, clearly, a brutal combination of biological and social failings aren’t giving women a leg up, as it were. But are you helping yourself? Dr Mintz says a key reason that lesbians are catching up with the boys is that they’re not labouring under the belief that a man can ‘gift’ a woman an orgasm. ‘When women believe this – even subconsciously – they take a back seat in the pursuit of their own pleasure,’ says Dr Mintz. Which does nobody any favours. ‘The pressure on men to perform is essentially doubled,’ she adds. And the subsequent urge to fulfil duty can be, well, anything but sexy. Izzy, 27, a curator from Ipswich, is in a long-term relationship with a man who insists she always orgasms. ‘I don’t take that for granted, but there’s something about the way he touches me so purposefully that makes me feel like my pleasure is a box to be ticked.’ She’s orgasming, sure – but it’s not the intuitive sex she wants. Has she said anything? ‘I don’t generally struggle to ask for what I need but, with sex, I worry that I can’t express that without sounding accusatory.’ This lack of communication around the quality of sex goes for lesbian couples as well as heterosexuals. Just because you’re doing