Is "Orgasm Gap" Code For "Dudes Are Lazy"?

Do you orgasm as often as your partner? If you’re a girl who bangs dudes, chances are you don’t, according to new research — especially if you’re having casual sex.

Writing in The Daily Beast, Hannah Seligson reports on an “orgasm gap” between men and women. Researchers found that while women in relationships orgasm 80% as often as men. In repeated hookups (more than twice), women come half as often, and on first-time hookups the percentage drops to a third. But it’s not because ladies need love and security in order to get off. Instead, it’s because dudes just aren’t trying that hard.

Men are less likely to perform oral sex as part of a hookup than when they’re in a relationship, and they may be less likely to care about the woman’s orgasm in general. In interviews conducted as part of the study, one guy said “that with his girlfriend, ‘definitely oral is really important [for her to orgasm],’ but that with a casual hookup, ‘I don’t give a shit.'” Another man said:

Now that I’m in a relationship, I think [her orgasm is] actually pretty important. More important than [in a] hookup. Because you have more invested in that person…When it’s a hookup you feel less investment.

When did making a girl come become “boyfriend experience,” some kind of special thing you do only for somebody you also take home to mom? And when you have sex, aren’t you making an investment, an investment of time, energy, and risk? When you’re a guy, you expect that investment to pay off with your orgasm. Shouldn’t the woman get a return on her investment too? Seligson quotes Michael Kimmel, author of Guyland, who compares sex to housework: “Men don’t pull their weight on either front because no one makes them.” So we need to make them — just as faking an orgasm is bad for womankind, letting your hookup get away with sexual selfishness just teaches him that’s ok. Everybody’s different, and not everyone is going to come every time, but if we go to the trouble of fucking a guy (and as much fun as it is, it totally is a lot of trouble), we deserve better than “I don’t give a shit.”