(hell, yeah) Scarleteen

Confused Teen asks:

I’ve been in a relationship with my current boyfriend for a year now, and we’ve been having sexualintercourse for around 8 months. Throughout this time, I have NEVER reached an orgasm through sex, but because I thought I was the weird abnormal one, and was afraid of how my boyfriend may react, I since have faked it every single time which we have had sex. Sex is alright, but I now just want to tell him. But how do I explain to him that this isn’t his fault without him being hurt and upset? Please help me because I really don’t know what to do!

Heather Corinna replies:

Before I say anything else, I want to make sure you know how typical it is to not reach orgasm from vaginal intercourse for receptive partners. I don’t want to reinvent the wheel here since we’ve addressed this a lot, so I’ll just give you basics on that, followed by some links if you want more information about it.

The short of the long of it is that for folks with vaginas, somewhere around seventy and eighty percent do not reach orgasm through intercourse alone, even though the majority of people with penises who have that kind of sex usually do (but not all of them do, either). A minority of usually-women who do reach orgasm that way also don’t usually orgasm that way every time. When intercourse is all or most of what’s going on, that’s not how you’re most likely to orgasm, not because you’re abnormal, but mostly because that activity, all by itself, is a lot less likely than other activities to provide the kind of stimulation — genital and otherwise — that most commonly elicits orgasm.

Most receptive partners who reach orgasm while having vaginal intercourse do because there is way more going on than just intercourse. More is going on for them both before intercourse begins and/or during intercourse, where other sexual activities are added to intercourse or done before, like receptive manual sex (using the hands and fingers on the genitals) or oral sex, masturbation, the use of sex toys, kissing, full-body stroking or other things, including what we can do with things like using language and fantasy during sex. As well, folks who do also are usually being clear with partners about what feels good and doesn’t, and those partners are responding to that information in what they’re doing and how they’re doing it, rather than just doing what feels good to them with no real regard for the other person present and what they find feels good.

It’s also worth noting that when penis-in-vagina intercourse is all that’s going on, you’re probably a lot less likely to be aroused enough because that activity by itself often isn’t all that stimulating, and you may even find that intercourse sometimes feels painful or even feels like almost nothing at all. To boot, many people feel pressure around vaginal intercourse and how it goes in a relationship, or have something going on in the emotional dynamics of their relationship with intercourse that have an impact on pleasure. For instance, some folks sex lives with a partner where only intercourse is going on or getting center stage can make them feel like the whole rest of them is being disregarded or like sex is only about their partner, not about them. Other folks can experience dynamics that aren’t exciting or comfortable for them that go on with or around intercourse, like certain gender roles.

Of course, some folks just feel bored with a sex life that’s only or mostly intercourse. Just like if you ate the same soup three times a day, every day, and had no other meals you’d probably stop getting pretty excited about eating, people who have the same kind of sex every single time have a hard time getting very excited about it.

Read the rest at Scarleteen here.