A Woman’s Orgasms and full benefits of sex

A Woman’s Orgasms and full benefits of sex

To get the full benefits of sex, both partners must come. But how do you know when a woman has an orgasm? Is there more than one kind of female orgasm?

In this section, I’ll answer those questions and more.

To start off with, one of the unanswered questions of human sexuality is why women have orgasms at all. Orgasms serve no biological purpose that scientists can tell. There are a number of theories, including the notion that the contractions serve to “suck” semen up into the body, increasing the chance of pregnancy—or that orgasms serve to bond a couple and increase chances that they’ll stay together to raise offspring— or that orgasm is just an evolutionary “hang-over,” like the male nipple.

To this day no one really knows.

What exactly is an orgasm? An orgasm is the third stage of the sexual response cycle detailed by Masters and Johnson (1966), which includes excitement, plateau, orgasm, and resolution. In the orgasm phase for both men and women, involuntary muscle contractions in the lower pelvic muscles occur, along with muscle spasms in other parts of the body.

There are some biological aspects of orgasm specific to women. As a woman becomes aroused, her clitoris enlarges. Her skin may redden as she experiences increased blood flow to the skin and other areas of the body (called a “sex flush”). Just before coming, her labia minor becomes darker, and the vagina actually decreases in size by about thirty percent. When she comes, her uterus and vagina, along with her pelvic muscles, contract rhythmically, often in “waves” or series of contractions.

However, not all women make it to this stage. About a third of women never come at all from intercourse, while only 10 to 30% (depending on the source of the statistics) always come. The majority of women (30 to 40%) have orgasms sometimes, but not always. Compare this data with that for men: 95% of men always come when they have sex. Why is it so difficult for women to come?

The reason for the variation in women’s abilities to come isn’t necessarily the quality of a woman’s lover (surprise!) or her social conditioning—it may actually be genetic. A 2005 twin study in Biology Letters suggests that the variation in women’s abilities to orgasm is 34 to 45% genetic. Some researchers theorize that women who found it more difficult to come would have selected partners who were better and more thoughtful lovers, increasing the chance that he’d hang around to raise offspring.

While men often struggle to keep themselves from coming too soon, women often struggle to come at all. A woman can’t mentally “make” herself have an orgasm, because it’s an involuntary body reaction to sexual stimulation. Not even she herself may know when she’s going to come, or how long it’s going to take, or whether she’s even going to come at all. She may not come at all, and stay in the “plateau” phase until sexual stimulation stops and she returns to an unaroused state.

Some women have active sex lives but have never had an orgasm. If a woman doesn’t know whether or not she has experienced an orgasm, she probably hasn’t. When a woman comes, she knows it.

Although it’s impossible to describe an experience as subjective as orgasm, here

is a general description that should include elements familiar to most women:

Just before coming, a woman will feel tension building inside her. She may clench the muscles in her legs and buttocks, or she may feel a sensation similar to the burning need to pee. When she comes, she’ll feel all of her inner muscles clench up; sometimes it will feel as if she’s spasming or that waves of pleasure are passing through her body.

She may cry out involuntarily or grip her partner hard. After coming (which usually lasts only seconds), most women are exhausted and need to rest, just like men do (the resolution phase). Some women don’t want their partner to touch their genitals at all afterwards, because they’re too sensitive.