Jane Thomas

I suppose that I have been lucky. I have had a sex drive that is unusual for a woman. I know that this is unusual because most women talk of love, trust and comittment. From time to time, I positively enjoy jumping on my man.

The misconception that vaginal intercourse, or any physical stimulation technique for that matter, will lead to spontaneous female sexual arousal leads to women taking a passive stance in sex. They continue to hope indefinitely that a man, knowing how to reach his own orgasm, will somehow know how to make ‘a miracle’ happen.

Beliefs about female sexuality are more often based on fantasy than facts. These are the 10 essential facts that every woman (if she is interested in sharing her own sexual arousal and orgasm with a partner) should know:

It is highly misleading to tell women that lack of orgasm during sex is a sexual dysfunction… It is simply the way things are for many women who hope for orgasm from their sexual relationships.

When they talk about their sexual relationships with men, women will often refer to love, trust and commitment. These factors are obviously important for the stability of long-term relationships that family life depends on. But they are not factors that will help a woman learn how to enjoy orgasm during sex.

Most women, sex experts or not, never learn to masturbate. Without the knowledge of how to achieve their own orgasm through masturbation, they never learn how their own sexual arousal works and that genital stimulation is required for orgasm as much for women as it is for men.

Women like to refer to sex as 'making love' because it indicates that their motives are loving rather than explicitly sexual. Modern expectations may cause some women to talk about their sexual experiences in terms of arousal and orgasm. But many others interpret sex as a loving act without needing to talk about orgasm at all.

The heterosexual act of vaginal intercourse is designed foremost as an expression of love between a man and a woman. After all, if sex was purely about two people reaching orgasm, then we would more naturally engage in activities that involve more direct genital stimulation. Intercourse is a natural progression from kissing to a man capitalising on his sexual arousal to 'make love' to a woman.

Women's sexual arousal is poorly understood so that men often assume that women must be able to orgasm even without clitoral stimulation. Few women learn that they will need to use orgasm techniques to experience true sexual arousal with a partner.

Many people are highly defensive about the idea that not every woman knows how to orgasm during sex. Women's sexual arousal is not as automatic's as men's tends to be and so they have to learn how to use their orgasm techniques during sex.

Shere Hite explained back in the 1970's how the women in her surveys reached orgasm during sex with a partner. She compared women's success with orgasm during masturbation to their experience of intercourse and concluded that it was the lack of clitoral stimulation that explained the difference.

Masturbation is a crucial stage in the development of male sexuality where boys learn how to bring their state of sexual arousal to orgasm. Against all logic, it is often implied that women can hope for orgasm without the need for the same learning process.

If a woman is open-minded to the idea of exploring eroticism, she should start by reading some erotic literature. If she has liberated friends it may be worth getting some recommendations. I suggest:

In pursuit of knowledge and understanding of sexual arousal, I went to a large newsagent in London's Oxford Street to review the covers of fifty or more pornographic magazines, which were lined up along the top shelf. Over 90% were directed towards heterosexual men. Most of the remainder was male homosexual pornography. The very few pornographic magazines for women were for lesbians.

Young men wake up each morning with an erection and have spontaneous erections throughout the day as sex-related thoughts occur to them or simply as a result of seeing someone they find attractive. A boy has no choice but to learn about his sexual arousal and orgasm but, for women, learning how to orgasm is a much more conscious process.

In the film 'Private Benjamin', a group of female army recruits sits around a campfire during an overnight exercise. One of the women says: "I had an orgasm once..." and the others giggle. She goes on to say in a disappointed tone "...but I was alone!" Her girlfriends laugh sympathetically.

I'm sure that men will understand the point. We express our sexuality through two basic phenomena: Firstly, enjoying our own psychological arousal through an appreciation of eroticism; and secondly, bringing that sexual arousal to orgasm by physical stimulation of the penis/clitoris.

Depressingly often it is asserted that for a woman to orgasm during sex she must truly love her man. A loving partner will, of course, know how to give her an orgasm.

Naturally in talking publicly about sex I have been asked for my credentials. I find such questions slightly ironic when one sees the variety of contradictory explanations for women's sexual experiences provided by people who hold professional qualifications.

Getting sex in perspective, very few women talk confidently either about the joys or the difficulties associated with orgasm. The vast majority are silent so it is difficult to know what they think. It would be nice to imagine that at least some are quietly getting on with it; too busy doing to be talking about it.

I have questioned my sexual experiences since the very first time I had sex. It has amazed me that more women don't question. We have known since the 1970's that vaginal intercourse doesn't provide sufficient PHYSICAL stimulation (of the clitoris) for orgasm.

Published in 1972, 'Joy of Sex' by Alex Comfort MD was revolutionary at the time because it suggested a new openness and a sense of fun in modern sexual relationships. Liberal-minded couples welcomed the idea that it could now be considered normal and 'uninhibited' to enjoy sex as a natural part of an adult relationship.

It's relatively easy for a woman to figure out that men want sex... but they also want to be loved and appreciated through their sexual relationship.

When I was 21, I met an Italian boy during a stay in Rome. Alfredo was tall and slim. He cared about how he dressed and would often check his appearance in the mirror. I teased him because I thought that even for women blatant personal vanity was undesirable.

Orgasm is not the critical goal for women that it typically is for men. So women will invest in their sexual relationship, even without orgasm, if they feel good about the relationship in general.

Anyone who is familiar with orgasm will know that, despite all the fuss made about physical stimulation, this aspect of sex can be a complete red herring. Clitoral stimulation is not everything. In other words, knowing which body part to stimulate is useful but not the whole story. After all, our enjoyment of sex ultimately depends on what happens in the brain.

Young men wake up each morning with an erection and have spontaneous erections throughout the day as sex-related thoughts occur to them or simply as a result of seeing someone they find attractive. A boy has no choice but to learn about his sexual arousal and orgasm but, for women, learning how to orgasm is a much more conscious process.

In pursuit of knowledge and understanding of sexual arousal, I went to a large newsagent in London's Oxford Street to review the covers of fifty or more pornographic magazines, which were lined up along the top shelf. Over 90% were directed towards heterosexual men. Most of the remainder was male homosexual pornography. The very few pornographic magazines for women were for lesbians.

If a woman is open-minded to the idea of exploring eroticism, she should start by reading some erotic literature. If she has liberated friends it may be worth getting some recommendations. I suggest:

From the very early days, I appreciated the sensual aspects of sex with a partner: The intimacy of full-on kissing; Enjoying the different feel of hairy skin; Marvelling at the responsiveness of his erection; The intimacy of nudity; and The concept of penetration.