Why You Need to Care Less About the Female Orgasm

If you speak to enough women about the topic, eventually you realize that men care too much about orgasms.

Not just their own orgasms — although many guys do focus on their own pleasure without caring enough, or at all, about their partners’ — but on orgasms, period. Which is to say, sometimes, men focus too much on women’s orgasms.

Now, this doesn’t necessarily apply to gay men or guys who otherwise don’t sleep with women, but it’s a real thing — some men are so focused on making their partners cum that it actually becomes unpleasant for the women they sleep with.

You might wonder — doesn’t that sound backwards? Weren’t we taught to start caring about women’s pleasure? Aren’t there articles on AskMen dedicated to telling us to focus on female pleasure? Now you’re telling us we care too much?

And the answer is — yes and no. So let’s dive in.

The Problem of Being Too Orgasm-Focused

It’s true that orgasms are great. No one is disputing that. But focusing too much on them can lead to worse sex.

Here’s an analogy: When I was in university, I struggled as a student. I would often wait until the last minute to start my assignments, and, unsurprisingly, this translated to poor grades. When I spoke to a therapist about this issue, he counseled me to lower my expectations of myself somewhat.

Because I believed that I should get an A in every course, the pressure to meet that high standard felt overwhelming. That pressure caused me to feel stress, rather than excitement, when it came to schoolwork, and then that stress prevented me from doing my best work. So my grades were too often Cs.

My therapist suggested that if I focused on lowering my expectations — if I consciously told myself I would shoot for a B instead of an A — counter-intuitively, I might have a better chance of actually getting an A. At the very least, I might be less likely to get a C, because the lowered pressure would mean I’d end up doing a better job.

A similar dynamic can play out in a sex context. When someone is too focused on orgasms in bed — their own or their partner’s — they turn what’s supposed to be fun into a high-pressure situation. Which is exactly the opposite of what you need in order to genuinely enjoy yourself.

Lots of guys see being able to make a partner cum as a mark of sexual skill that makes them Real Men. And it’s true that being able to make someone experience such intense pleasure is a really thrilling feeling. But not being able to make someone cum isn’t necessarily a failure on your part.

In fact, many women will tell you they’d much rather have sex where they’re not expected to cum than sex where their partner is hyper-focused on how much pleasure he’s giving them exactly.

What to Do Instead of Focusing on Orgasms

The seeming contradiction I mentioned earlier — that there’s been a cultural shift towards expecting men to focus more on female pleasure in recent years, and here I am, telling you that men are too orgasm-focused — is in fact not a contradiction at all. The key point is in the difference between “pleasure” and “orgasms.”

This may be largely absent from male conceptions of sex, but it’s possible to enjoy sex — to enjoy it a lot — without orgasming. This is a reality for many women and people with vaginas, for a complex variety of reasons.

But don’t take it from me — let’s hear from some experts.

“Orgasm may not be the ultimate experience for some people,” says sexologist Jess O’Reilly, Ph.D., host of the Sex With Dr. Jess podcast. “There are no universal rules when it comes to sex and some people genuinely enjoy sex regardless of whether or not they have an orgasm.”

“Orgasm doesn’t need to be the goal of every sexual encounter,” agrees Rachel Wright, MA, LMFT, a relationship expert and psychotherapist. “It can be the pleasure of the sexual encounter itself. In fact, one of my favorite exercises to give couples is to have sex (my definition: a meaningful experience of pleasure) without orgasm. Like, take it off the table. See what it’s like for the goal to be each other’s pleasure, instead of that one moment.”

As well, O’Reilly points out, “Perhaps your own performance pressure (to ‘give’ your partner an orgasm) is detracting from your experience of pleasure.”

“If you tune into the sensations in your body,” she says, “you’ll likely enjoy sex even more regardless of whether or not your partner has an orgasm.”

O’Reilly recommends a more exploratory approach to sex.

Rather than focusing on nailing down orgasms in particular, “Take time to explore new sensations and explorations together,” she suggests, “from full body massage to toys to kink to new approaches to oral to sharing fantasies, the world is your sexual oyster. The more you expand your opportunities for pleasure, the more exciting and fulfilling sex will be for both parties.”

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Source: AskMen