How to Make a Woman Come--Even If You Are That Woman. AKA Things I Learned from Science, Sex, and The Ladies

Louis CK* has a bit on how men complain about women's "neediness" after sex:

“After sex, you’re looking at two very different people. The man just wants to lay there and be cool and the woman wants to cuddle. 'Why is she so needy?’ She’s not needy you idiot, she’s horny, because you did nothing for her. You did absolutely nothing. Her pussy is on fire because it's gone unfucked completely. Of course you’re fine, you climbed on and went “KFHGSKG” and rolled off. And she’s on you because she’s like ‘WH-at SOMETHING ELSE HAS TO HAPPEN! This is bullshit!!' If you fuck a woman well, she will leave you alone. ‘Thanks a lot, buddy. Zzzzz.’”

Louis says this happens because men are "bad at sex." Perhaps, but I think a lot of us are kinda bad at sex--just by default, because we never got the proper instruction. People want to be good lovers and fuck well. But it's incredibly difficult--ridiculously so--to get any sort of reasonable, real-world education.

Even today, we know so little about women's bodies. So very little!  It was only in the past few years that I learned that the clit occupies an extensive bit of pelvic real estate, that scientists still don't know what the fuck women are squirting when they ejaculate (it's "not pee," which just leaves...every non-pee substance), and that the cervix is so insensitive that 95% of women can't tell if it's being rubbed with a cotton swab. (This being the primary reason that the Gentleman's Cervical Swab Rubbing Courtship Technique of 1847 has fallen out of favor.)

In other cases, we know very well what's going with on women's bodies, but for some reason, bury or don't acknowledge this info.

The most egregious form of our sexual ignorance/denial is about how most women actually have an orgasm: A woman comes from having her clitoris rubbed. There are a lucky few (very few!) who can get the job done via p-in-v fucking, but even then, what's going down with every woman is that:

1. their clit is rubbed.
2. they come (or don't.)

That's it.  

This is pretty much contrary to every depiction of women's sexual response we see in porn, mainstream films, and read about in books. Even books written for women by women. (Er. Or not.  See updated discussion about this in the comments.)

Trisha Borowicz got all Fight-the-Power about this (yay!) and made a smart, funny, cheeky film called Science, Sex, and The Ladies "for all the women who have felt confused, frustrated, or ashamed about their ability to orgasm."  

 I learned all kinds of things from Science, Sex, and the Ladies, up to and including:

--I couldn't tell a whit of difference between the photos of the Aroused Clitoris and Unaroused Clitoris (possible future lesbian lovers: you have been forewarned.)
--Women have their strongest orgasms by their own hand, second strongest with someone else's hand, and weakest via fucking and the frustratingly indirect stimulation of a penis rubbing-near-but-not-quite-exactly-where-you-need-it.
 --Contrary to popular belief, women don't take forever to come. Women come as quickly as easily as men, given the right stimulation. Men would also take forever to come if they were only being stimulated by, say, someone diligently rubbing their pubic hair.

My favorite part of the film depicted scenes of people engaged in various forms of sexual congress--a blow job, fucking, etc...--when a cheery actress would walk into the each scene and advise the female participant to "Rub one out!" to enhance her experience. It was fun, breezy and educational--like a particularly racy episode of The Electric Company.

I actually do wish this was the sort of stuff young people saw. And, while I'm at it, I wish more sex scenes depicted women being stimulated realistically, in the way that women actually need to be stimulated, so that women would no longer have to think they were somehow broken, doing it wrong or hadn't yet found the proper dick.

There is an orgasm disparity among women and men that drastically affects the way each understand themselves and each other. The truth is, women go through their sexual lives having very few orgasms compared to their male partners, and this has become a matter of course, a sort of unspoken accepted reality. This discrepancy, however, is not a result of innate differences between male and female biology, but a result of how we as a culture have come to understand, teach and experience sex.

Science, Sex and the Ladies aims to make it known that this orgasm disparity is culturally created, harmful, and in no way inevitable. It's actually quite an appalling and over arching problem that creeps into every aspect of our lives and relationships. Neither modern women or modern men are fully responsible for this problem, but a change in both are necessary for a solution. Science Sex and the Ladies, as part of a larger Orgasm Equality Movement, is a call to action.--Science, Sex, and the Ladies.

Anyway, if you want to be part of the Orgasm Equality Movement--and I do, although I'm totally not going to refer to it as that--the film makers are offering screeners of the movie if you'd like to host a small group showing. It's free--all they ask is that you send them a photo of the festivities. For more info, email anc@ancmovies.com.

I watched it alone, but wish I'd been with a group because I have all kinds of questions now. Like:

--Why are women writing romance/erotica about easily orgasmic p-in-v sex? Are all erotica writers among the tiny percentage of penis in vagina cumees? Or are they writing about how they think sex should be? Or how they wish it could be?
--What is the connection between emotions and sex? I'm totally onboard with Naomi Wolf's ideas in Vagina about sexual/spiritual/emotional connections, heady neurochemicals, and the transcendence that can happen in a really good fuck. And yet..... While emotional connection and getting "in the mood" is great, and certainly something to strive for, it's clearly not absolutely necessary for an orgasm. A woman masturbating with a showerhead or something can come plenty easily without having a big emotional experience and/or scene-setting. And yet... I have also burst into tears after an orgasm. Why and how are emotions all mixed up with sex? Or do we just assume they are, ergo, they are?
--If you are like pretty much every other chick and need to rub your clit to come, do you do it during sex with someone else? Or have you been among those (and, yes, I have been there as well) making "secret, quiet circles on disappointed clits next to sleeping lovers."

What are we all gonna do about this?

xoxo
jill

PS. I recently was also cited on some Spanish-language anti-gay site (blergh) for my supposed anal bleaching expertise.  "Una experta en el tema, la Sra. Hamilton entra en grandes detalles sobre la historia de esta reprobable técnica."

PPS. That site has 2 million views.

*This was before. Damn you, Louis.

(photo via Church of the Victorian Cult, not sure where Wendy Rose got a hold of it.)