Recently we learned that just on a purely
live-tonight-sold-out, standing-room only hookup-basis, women are less likely
to get off than men. Most of us were like, no
duuhhh. But the question I want answered is how much do we actually care?
This is not a trick question.
From earlier coverage, here are the deets on the study:
For her piece, Kitroeff interviewed several young people, and also explored recently published studies from the Kinsey Institute and NYU that came to roughly the same conclusions: 1. That women are two times as likely to have an orgasm when they’re in a relationship as when they’re not and 2. That when thousands of college students were interviewed about the last hookup they’d had, 42 percent of women had had an orgasm versus the 80 percent of men who had.
Bonus fact: 74 percent of women had had an orgasm the last time they’d has sex while in a relationship. “We attribute that to practice with a partner, which yields better success at orgasm, and we also think the guys care more in a relationship,” said one researcher.
Another said, “We’ve been sold this bill of goods that we’re in an era where people can be sexually free and participate equally in the hookup culture. The fact is that not everyone’s having a good time.”
One: define “good time.” Two: Look, orgasms are weird. They’re great, but they’re weird.
For women, they are often more elusive. We also have more to unpack culturally about sex. But whether our greater difficulty in getting off is strictly about
anatomy or strictly about culture, or like nearly every other hang-up we’ve
ever had, a product of some weird, insidious blend of the two, seems hard to
tease out.
In other words: If you don’t
care about having an orgasm with every sexual encounter, is it because you simply value other
aspects of the experience more, or is it because, like some expensive
makeup you can only buy every once in a while when you get your tax return,
you’ve learned not to care about every-time orgasms because you know that’s not your life?
Maybe it’s both?
I think it’s both. Here’s the deal:
When you’re younger and
experimenting, if you are dabbling from your available pool of same-aged peeps,
it’s unlikely you’re going to meet tons of vastly skilled lovers who are going
to just blow it all out of the water for you in a hot whirlpool of satisfying
lovemaking. In other words, you’re likely to be matched up with other people
who have about as much experience as you do. That doesn’t mean you aren’t
enjoying yourself: Inexperienced sex can still be great (especially when it’s
all you know), and very passionate, but also kinda bumbling. It’s supposed to
be bumbling! It’s where you’re learning. This leaves men and women to figure each other out at speed, but we’re
not working with the same equipment or cultural messages.
Men are encouraged to go out there
and get some; women have a batshit mountain of messages to ignore/work
through to even be in this room hooking up without thinking we are dirty
whores. Seems easy enough to me to figure out why generally speaking (and yes, I’m speaking generally), it’s
easier for men to show up, get off, and not think too much about it, while
women who may be just as enthusiastic and eager to have a sexual experience may
still be more hesitant to demand sexual pleasure — especially when that
pleasure comes with more work.
This Hairpin response
piece to the orgasm study titled “I am So Sorry You Probably Didn’t Have
An Orgasm That Time We Hooked Up,” offers a guy’s jokey response to this idea of women everywhere being left unsatisfied. It’s really funny in parts — I know I shot out of your apartment like a superball out of a
tailpipe. But I was pretty sure I had pleased the pants right off of you. I mean,
your pants were still on. But still. — but it focuses more on the New York Times being dumb about sex, and then kind of ends with a
plea for you (women) to ask for the things you want in bed. And then, it implies, you will
get the things you want.
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