Why Is It So Hard to Talk About the Female Orgasm? A Mother and Daughter Discuss
RelationshipsThe Experts

Right around puberty, I discovered the glory of an orgasm. In 9th grade, it happened for the first time with a guy. We didn’t have sex but everything else had been enough. I remember thinking that I didn’t know what just happened or how, but I wanted it to happen every freaking day for the rest of my life.
As I got older, it became more complicated. Suffering from crippling insecurities, I barely kept my eyes open during sex for the first ten years. So telling a guy what I needed in order to have an orgasm was out of the question. Besides, on my own, I needed to squeeze my legs together rhythmically while lying on my right side. How the hell was that supposed to translate to sex with someone else? It’s been hit or miss throughout my life— I can make it happen on my own, but it’s still tricky if someone else is involved.
I’ve talked to my 20-year old stepdaughter Lauren about (almost) every element of human sexuality. But I did not know how to talk to her about orgasms. Why would I stumble on clueing her in on the very thing that I have hang-ups about? I called Lauren up and we dove into why it’s hard to talk about it, why the guys have it easier and why the female orgasm is like a big bad monster.
As always, I like to start off with getting a refresher on how I handled the topic we’re discussing. I don’t think I ever talked about orgasms with you.
Let me think. It was definitely later than everything else we talked about. Probably high school? It wasn’t really about what an orgasm is. It was more about how I should know my body well and be able to communicate my needs to a partner.
That sounds like I gave you a lame talk. Why on earth is it so hard to talk about orgasms? I was keeping it real with you about everything! But talking about orgasms seems so—
It’s not just that it’s an orgasm. It’s the female orgasm. No one talks about it in pop culture and stuff. You can hear sly references to male orgasms even in a sitcom. But the female orgasm is the big huge monster.
And why is that?
Too complicated. Too mysterious. Too… whatever. We’re taught that sex ends when a guy orgasms. So that’s how they act. I got the message right away that if I was going to be in a heteronormative relationship—your partner is not going to care whether you have an orgasm.