KEY POINTS
- It’s commonly thought that men orgasm more easily than women due to biology, but research doesn’t support this contention..
- Men are enculturated with a sense of entitlement, and this may play out in the bedroom as well.
- Research shows that both men and women believe men are more entitled to orgasms.
- It’s common knowledge that men are more likely than women to orgasm during a sexual encounter. This is true in both casual affairs and long-term relationships. But why this is the case is not clear.
Because orgasm is linked with ejaculation in males, researchers for a long time thought the relevant question was why women have orgasms at all. However, we now understand female reproductive anatomy well enough to answer that question.
The reason is that the male penis and the female clitoris are analogous structures. They both have a high concentration of nerve endings, which, when sufficiently stimulated, lead to orgasm. In other words, women have orgasms for the same reason that men have nipples—it’s due to the basic human body plan.
However, it could be the case that men are still more likely to reach orgasm than women because of anatomical differences. After all, men have nipples, but they don’t usually lactate. So maybe women can reach orgasm if the conditions are just right, and those who do climax frequently should count themselves lucky.
It’s Not About Biology
As University of Michigan psychologists Verena Klein and Terri Conley point out in an article they recently published in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science, this argument doesn’t hold water. First, there’s nothing about the clitoris to suggest that it’s less likely to produce orgasms than the penis since both have the same concentration of nerve endings.
Furthermore, women are capable of having multiple orgasms in short secession. In contrast, men are limited in the number of orgasms they can have within a given time period. For reasons that are still unknown but highly debated, men experience a refractory period after each ejaculation, so multiple orgasms are out of the question. Given these facts, it seems that women should be having way more orgasms than men, not the other way around.
Since they ruled out biological reasons, Klein and Conley considered whether the gendered sexual pleasure gap could be explained by social attitudes about sex. They note that in Western society, men are taught to feel more entitled, whereas women are trained to act more deferential.
As an example, Klein and Conley consider the gendered pay gap. It’s well documented that men tend to be paid more for the same work as women, but this isn’t just due to patriarchal oppression. When researchers ask men and women how much they think they should be paid for various types of work, the men overwhelming expect to be paid more than the women do. In other words, women have internalized the idea that they’re not worth as much as men in the professional sphere.
Social Norms for Sexual Behavior
Klein and Conley speculate that a similar dynamic underlies the orgasm gap. Since it’s common knowledge that men have more orgasms, women may simply accept this as a fact that cannot be changed. As a result, they put little effort into achieving climax on their own. They may even think that an orgasm is something their lover gives to them, not something they do for themselves.
Likewise, men, with their sense of entitlement, expect to experience orgasm during sex. In fact, they often become quite distraught when they fail to reach climax, seeing the event as a failure.
To test the hypothesis that the gendered sexual pleasure gap stems from social norms, Klein and Conley conducted a series of studies that explored people’s attitudes about male and female orgasm. For instance, in one study, they asked participants to imagine a sexual encounter between a woman and a man in which only one of them could climax. It was up to each participant to decide which got the orgasm. Although the participants were divided into roughly equal numbers of males and females, nearly two-thirds gave the orgasm to the man. This shows that even women believe that men are more entitled to orgasm than they are.
In another study, participants read a scenario in which either “Jasmine” or “Michael” was suffering from severe depression and anxiety. Their doctor had prescribed a powerful new antidepressant, but the side effect was a loss of ability to orgasm. The participants were more likely to advise Jasmine to take the drug than they were Michael. This result again shows that people think men are more entitled to orgasm than women.
Women Think Men Are More Entitled to Orgasm
In a follow-up study, Klein and Conley asked people why they thought men were more entitled to orgasms than women. Many believed this was the case for social reasons, such as that men are in control during sex or that the sexual act itself is defined as the span between male initiation and male ejaculation. Others attributed the orgasm gap to biology, stating that men just orgasm more easily than women due to their respective anatomies.
While the first set of explanations reflects an acceptance of social norms and the status quo, the second set indicates a general lack of knowledge about human sexuality. As we’ve already seen, there’s no reason to believe that women’s biology limits their ability to achieve climax. Quite the contrary, female anatomy suggests that the orgasm gap should run in the opposite direction, with women having more orgasms than men.
Klein and Conley provide strong evidence that the orgasm gap is due, in large part, to social attitudes of male entitlement. However, it isn’t just that men are selfish and care only for their own sexual satisfaction, brutishly refusing to attend to their lover’s sexual needs. Rather, women as well have internalized the notion that men are entitled to orgasms but they themselves are not.
Given the importance of a satisfying sex life in maintaining physical and mental health throughout adulthood, it’s a shame that so many people still hold on to false beliefs about sexuality. The “Sexual Revolution” of the 1960s challenged people to rethink their attitudes about sex, but studies like this one show us that we still have a long way to go before we truly achieve a sex-positive society.
