EROTICISM: WOMEN GET NOT THE SAME SEXUAL PLEASURE AS MEN DO

Men and women live in different worlds when it comes to attitudes to eroticism. I suggested that most women today know how to pleasure a man but a British sex expert (male) disagreed:

“They haven’t a clue, and even if they knew, most wouldn’t do it.”

A joke illustrates the point: “What is the difference between a job and a wife?” Answer “After ten years a job still sucks!”.

Unfortunately many people still believe in sheltering young women from eroticism and so girls are told the basic reproductive facts but nothing of sexual pleasure. We are confident in telling girls about vaginal intercourse because it is the means of producing children. It also happens to be one of the easiest ways for a woman to provide a man with sexual release. Putting it crudely, masturbation by hand or mouth not only involves more work but is also more explicitly sexual.

Advertisement

Since women are not necessarily hoping for orgasm, they can be easily shocked by sex (in the context of sex play rather than trying for a baby). Women often don’t know how to orgasm and so they associate sexual pleasure with immorality. Men do hope for orgasm; and so eroticism and sex play, including activities other than intercourse, are more important to men.

Women have difficulty understanding men’s passion for sexual pleasure. The film ‘Indecent Proposal’ (1993) might be a little far-fetched, but nevertheless we accept that a man might pay as much as N1,000,000 for sex. Equally the film reflects women’s aversion to non-relationship sex: why else is the idea of sex with a good-looking millionaire so repulsive?

Men experience a purely physical reaction to seeing a woman’s body that has nothing to do with personal relationships. So, men engage lap dancers, visit go-go bars and watch topless reviews because they enjoy the sensations of sexual arousal that come from the physical proximity of a semi-naked woman. Conversely, women do not tend to pay even for this relatively mild physical gratification because the female mind and body simply do not respond as a man’s mind and body do.

Advertisement

Women’s sexual arousal and orgasm are not automatic and so women have to learn about their sexual arousal. Women do experience lust (or the desire to get laid) but they often need to be enticed into sex whereas men rarely need encouragement.

“ – men wish that women’s sexuality was like theirs, which it isn’t. Male sexual response is far brisker and more automatic: it is triggered easily by things, like putting a quarter in a vending machine. Consequently, at a certain level and for all men, girls and parts of girls are, at this stimulus level unpeople. That isn’t incompatible with their being people too. Your clothes, breasts, odour, etc. aren’t what he loves instead of you – simply the things he needs in order to set sex in motion to express love. Women seem to find this hard to understand.” (p34 The Joy of Sex – 1972)

A man’s arousal and orgasm are pretty much a given during sex. But a woman can take part in sexual activity without ever becoming aroused or reaching orgasm. So even women who have sex for years do not necessarily know how to orgasm. In order to qualify as ‘sexually experienced’, it is quality (breadth of experience) not quantity (years or partners) that counts.

As a minimum, a sexually experienced woman should (1) be able to masturbate to orgasm alone, (2) have explored clitoral stimulation with a partner via masturbation and oral sex and (3) have attempted a variety of positions for sexual intercourse. In order to discover how her arousal works, a woman needs to be positive enough about eroticism to be willing to explore her sexual fantasies. Unfortunately the average woman (and this includes many ‘sex experts’) lacks this experience.

Advertisement