Anorgasmia - inability to orgasm

[GNCQ]

5-10% of women have lived their whole lives without ever having experienced an orgasm.

The statistics in men with primary anorgasmia is about 0.15% so 1.5 in every thousand men will have the same issue.

I have roughly 20 good female friends, so it's possible 1 or 2 or them don't/can't ever orgasm. This is no doubt a feminist issue.

Seeing as some of the psychological causes of primary anorgasmia include bad body image, embarrassment and guilt, I'm not surprised it's more prevalent in women.

Maybe better sex education would help? FGM (basically forced inability to orgasm) affects only women, also perhaps it is possible that women are more likely to be turned off by sex from (bad) early childhood experiences.

It's rather a Taboo subject.
How many women on here can't orgasm?

I personally couldn't imagine my life without the experience, and basically had no idea it was so prevalent in women until recently.

What could feminists do to help?

I actually don't enjoy piv so much. I feel pain when the top of my partner's (whoever they are at the time ) dick bangs the entrance to my cervix, so don't enjoy things like "doggy style" and don't think my "G spot" actually exists!

I DO however enjoy sex thoroughly, because I'm familiar with my clitoris and get aroused quite easily with foreplay.

I discovered orgasm after watching - this is so weird because I'm completely straight - a "Jet from Gladiators" exercise video.

I was about maybe 15? She was thrusting her pelvis all around for a lot of it. I enjoyed the action so had to sort of rub myself against something hard to alleviate the feeling!

I never particularly had body issues, eg wasn't self conscious. Was actually rather confident with my looks, just wanted to do some "Gladiator" style exercise (if anyone else remembers that!)

@Charley50

I discovered orgasms by myself really young (thank you Judy Blume), and had a friend the same, so personally didn't find it too taboo, as we obsessively discussed this amazing thing we had discovered for ourselves. (Hope this isn't TMI?) Had other friends who discovered it much much later, and would have been shocked at our talk (tried, got shamed into not talking about it with them).

Sex education at school was more about the mechanics. I didn't really want teachers telling me how to have an orgasm..

Had a great sex life with great orgasms (in most of my serious relationships) until very recently (perimenopause?) where a decent orgasm (any orgasm?) seems to elude me. I'm gutted about this and hoping it's just a blip. 😢

I agree that female pleasure was more of a focus in the 80s and 90s; women's magazines discussed it a lot. Now it seems that male pleasure is the focus and is really damaging sex for young people, especially young women.. (why does my phone capitalise Male?!)

Ahh, Judy Blume, Forever and Ralph were also my first insight to the pleasure women could get from sex. Who remembers More magazine's position of the fortnight? (I aged out of buying that way before I was sexually active, but again, focus on women's pleasure.

I have a 14yo dd, yes I would be horrified about her buying a magazine that openly showed positions of the fortnight (as my mum was!) but there is nothing in her life (afaik) that is showing her that way into the future she can be having fun with her body. Sex Ed has purely been biology and mechanics at school for her.

Bring back more magazine! And Just Seventeen!

I agree about the magazines - not just More, but Marie Claire, Elle, Cosmo etc were widely read by younger teenage girls, and they actually had content in those days - long essays on global issues, short stories - and proper body positive sex advice which was focused on female pleasure, masturbation and relationships.

And, importantly, not the kind of “sex positive” stuff that came after in the 2000s - “100 ways to give a blow job” and Brazilian waxes and tips on anal - but proper advice that focused on mutual pleasure and healthy relationships. Anyone remember the fuss in the early 90s when The Lover’s Guide came out and they did a new edition of The Joy of Sex? It was much more about skill and female satisfaction then, and women’s and girls’ magazines did actually have tips on orgasms and masturbation! It was the era of Nancy Friday’s My Secret Garden and The Vagina Monologues!

I discovered orgasms quite young - certainly before I was a teenager - and later avidly read up on lots of tips in magazines and books, as well as my parents’ not very well hidden copy of the 1970s Joy of Sex. (I was quite well informed despite having no practical experience of sex until much later!) I didn’t quite dare buy the Nancy Friday, but I read it standing in in Waterstone’s , and when I got to university I promptly bought some Anais Nin, and some Taschen erotic etchings books which were all the rage to look sophisticated 😂

I do think the late 80s and 90s were probably a lot better in terms of the messaging and information young women got about their bodies and sex, compared to the two decades since 2000. I’m horrified at the lack of information young women have (I teach university students, often on feminist theory so they do discus stuff like this in classes), and how they say their sex education has been entirely based around performing for and submitting to male pleasure - to me, who grew up in the 90s, that sounds more like the 50s or 60s than my experience was! And very depressing.

Little boys touching- oh haha they're all obsessed with their willies aren't they!

That's just not true. They are told to stop, it's not polite as well.

I agree about the 90s. I didn't realised things had changed. That's why I tend to think wtf, when they state something is tabbo, which was widely and openly discussed 25 years ago.

Yeah, my students talk about these things like two men have been sexually repressed constantly since the Victorian era, and they are really surprised when I tell them it wasn’t at all like this in the 90s. I teach cultural history and occasionally for fun I do a seminar on body hair in history (lots of fun material on this, long hair and beards in the 19thc and so on!) and they are genuinely astonished when I tell them the fashion for completely shaving your pubic hair only started post-2000, and was in fact thought of as very weird in the 90s.

The one thing that would have made a real difference to me as a teenager was if I had a vibrator - but making do with fingers taught me a lot too 😂

*Two men? Women, bloody autocorrect

@irresistibleoverwhelm - yes to all of that.. apart from I bought My Secret Garden and still have it.. see pic. That was a well-thumbed book of mine - I won't say which chapters! Also I think Shelia Kitzinger wrote about sex and female pleasure - I had one of her books.

There was a Radio 4 programme on recently discussing early experiences of sex. Nearly all the young women in a survey reported that kissing was out and strangulation and throttling were in, and that was their first experiences. It's horrible. Hard-core porn means the focus is now on the male orgasm.

Growing up in the 80s really was a time of relative innocence and the freedom to explore with other innocent teens, or ourselves, compared to now.

The pill played havoc with my sex drive too. Had to come off it. What's the point of having sex if it doesn't make you feel horny? Major design fault.

Forgot the book cover...

I love that book cover @Charley50!

It was definitely fashionable at the time to read things like Angela Carter, lots of 80s and 90s novels with sex scenes focusing on women’s pleasure, that kind of thing (I mean more Jeanette Winterson than Shirley Conrad, but those got passed around too…goldfish anyone?! 😂) I also think that mainstream Hollywood films tended to have sex scenes which, despite being soft focus, did still look like they were about mutual pleasure rather than the erotic violence fashionable now. Think of the scenes in Ghost, Four Weddings etc. One of the first 15 films I saw was the remake of Blue Lagoon! But the representation of erotic experience was very different then - pre-50 Shades and the fashion for BDSM and so on, and pre the availability of widespread hardcore porn.

The choking and other hardcore niche stuff becoming mainstream is very upsetting and terrifying. Even young people who ought to be questioning this aren’t. One of my female students told me very sincerely that because “ethical porn” also features choking and hardcore BDSM, it was accepted evidence that all women have an innate natural desire to be brutalised during sex.

When I was able to pick my jaw off the floor I explained that this simply wasn’t part of general culture as recently as 20 years ago, but I can tell I’m now at the age when they’re thinking “ok fun-sucking kink-shaming boomer” (I’m only 43!!) so I don’t hope that any of it actually goes in. But I worry hugely for my little daughter who has all this yet to come.

*shirley conran!

The pill played havoc with my sex drive too. Had to come off it. What's the point of having sex if it doesn't make you feel horny? Major design fault.

Yep. 👍

I had the Nancy Friday books as a young woman and they were a complete revelation.

Well thanks to one of you ‘feminists’ banging on about orgasms for answering my question.

As I suspected women like to bang on about it being the us taboo/hidden subject and yet when they are asked outright do the exact same.

Enjoy being on your high horses

In my experience, GPs would do well to take anorgasmia more seriously. I was told that it is psychological, and advised to see a therapist, when I believe that my problem is physical, and started after a cs with DC2 (Ironically, I was on a hair trigger for amazing orgasms after having DC1).
One of many women’s health issues not taken seriously by HCPs.. and therefore a feminist issue.

@Purplegrape23

Well thanks to one of you ‘feminists’ banging on about orgasms for answering my question.

As I suspected women like to bang on about it being the us taboo/hidden subject and yet when they are asked outright do the exact same.

Enjoy being on your high horses

Say what?!? I have no idea what you mean!

Are you after orgasm tips? And we haven’t provided them or something?

The general thing on MN is that some posters get irritated with actual sex tips, and request such threads be moved to the sex board; so anything on the feminism boards is likely to be treated as a feminist discussion rather than a sex tips thread. That’s why you haven’t got any detailed discussion of how to achieve orgasm, in case that’s what you’re pissed about.

If you post on the sex board asking for tips there will be plenty of advice! But OP posted this on the feminism boards, not the sex board.

DH got me omgyes subscription - which was interesting and had lots of ideas. I didn’t figure it out for a long time, but I’m glad DH is very considerate and will always make sure I’m happy first.

@Purplegrape23

Well thanks to one of you ‘feminists’ banging on about orgasms for answering my question.

As I suspected women like to bang on about it being the us taboo/hidden subject and yet when they are asked outright do the exact same.

Enjoy being on your high horses

Fairly rude post that makes me not want to share my experiences with you tbh.

@Purplegrape23

Well thanks to one of you ‘feminists’ banging on about orgasms for answering my question.

As I suspected women like to bang on about it being the us taboo/hidden subject and yet when they are asked outright do the exact same.

Enjoy being on your high horses

Why would Feminists, sorry 'feminists' be expected to post about their own sexual experiences and how they orgasm on a public talk board? What made you think this was a thing feminists or any woman will jump in with details to a random person?

MN gets creeps on it all the time. The poo troll, the wee troll, one who posts about periods. Their OPs are always about schoolgirls. Loads of posts asking women to share various info about their sex lives.

You ask and get angry when no one does.

Can you understand why there is extreme reluctance.

Info on women and pleasure is available all over the internet. Including women talking about their experiences. That would help you.

I also don't understand your use of women as if you are not one- that can't be right! I typo I assume.

Good luck with your googling.

One thing I don’t think I’ve ever seen discussed is experience of female orgasms as a spectrum. Am I the only person who can have orgasms easily but sometimes they’re a bit rubbish? It can be anything for me from a physical response my body does but without any pleasure from it, a nice sensation but not mega-intense, to a ‘proper’ orgasm, and very occasionally something that’s too intense and somehow goes the wrong side of enjoyable, making me feel a bit queasy.
I appreciate this isn’t the sex board, but I’ve wondered whether I’m just weird or whether other women have this and no one talks about it.

No, you're not weird, that's exactly what I experience.

Well that’s nice to know! But it isn’t something that I’ve ever come across discussed elsewhere.

Purple I think this comes back to the lack of study in this area (outside of anecdote and slightly porny things).

How many people know about the internal structure of the clitoris?
The fact it is not positioned relative to other organs the exact same in all women is I think v important. That's just what I think- not read anything apart from it's not the exact same.

Due to the way it wraps around and can be nearer to some areas surely explains things like the 'mysterious' does it exist or not g-spot, why some women orgasm through penetrative sex and probably more.

In short what works for one woman may well not for another and that's normal. All the info in women's mags forever about how to 'achieve' this or that are not going to work across the board.

Etc etc.

And yes I'm sure that due to many factors orgasm is experienced in a range of ways and that's also normal.

I think it's fairly well-known that sometimes there are fairly boring functional orgasms, and other times, fantastic, mind-blowing orgasms, and everything in between. I know what you mean about the ones that are a bit overwhelming and 'too much' as well.

I suppose we (women) just don't talk about it that much (anymore?). As mentioned before, Cosmo etc used to be a bit more relatable. I used to love discussing all this when I was younger, but now I don't really feel the need to. Well maybe I do as my usual current ones are the first type! 

I think the whole culture has changed a lot over the decades. I read the Hite Report and Erica Jong when I was in my teens. Magazines as others have said were full of interesting articles and proper informative journalism, much of it about sex, but from the point of view of women. I think now sexuality is all about porn and male pleasure, and things that would have been viewed as extreme at one time (anal).

There was a genuine feeling that women's needs were being taken into account in the late seventies and eighties. Then with the internet it all became about men again. Sadly.

There is plenty of smutty fanfic that discusses this stuff in enormous detail. I must say, it's been a revelation .