- Hey, everybody.
Welcome back to my channel.
I'm Hannah, and here we like to talk a lot
about sex and relationships.
And sometimes I feel like my orgasms aren't good enough,
so today we're gonna be talking about the pressure
that we sometimes feel to improve our orgasms.
I recently made another video all about
what orgasms feel like and how we often set up orgasm
as the goal of sex and exploring
a lot of the language that we use to describe orgasm.
But in this video, I wanted to dive a little deeper
into how all of this can make us feel
like our orgasms aren't good enough.
From conversations about simultaneous orgasms,
multiple orgasms, orgasms that last for hours
and all of these apps and courses
out there to help us improve our orgasms,
is anyone else feeling like they're supposed
to be having totally amazing orgasms all of the time?
Just me?
It can feel like a lot of pressure,
and all of that pressure is not very sexy,
and it can take the fun away from sex in the first place.
So why do we feel like we need to improve
our orgasms and have more and more of them,
and do we really?
The orgasm gap.
The orgasm gap is the term coined
to describe the frequency with
which people of different genders
and sexualities orgasm.
The gap is most distinct between cishet men
and cishet women.
Boo.
A 2017 study in the "Archives of Sexual Behaviour"
actually showed that heterosexual women
are the least likely to orgasm during sex.
Some of the reasoning behind
why the orgasm gap exists includes the lack of education
around pleasure for people with vulvas,
and women and people of marginalised genders
not having the education to understand
their own bodies and feeling less able
to advocate for their own pleasure.
There's also the assumption that sex means penis
in vagina or PIV penetration,
which studies have shown just 18%
of women are able to come from alone.
As a quick aside here, I'm using the term women
because that is what is used in the research.
I assume that the data is about cis women,
because there is not nearly enough data
on trans and non-binary people.
So the orgasm gap is definitely a feminist issue,
and yes, we absolutely want women
and people of marginalised genders
to feel empowered to advocate for their wants
and needs in bed.
However, all of the discussion about the orgasm gap can make
us feel like we have a responsibility,
as feminists, to be doing our bit
to close the orgasm gap.
We need to advocate for our pleasure.
We need to have all of the amazing orgasms.
Fight the patriarchy with our mind-blowing orgasms.
But all of that can end up feeling like more pressure.
Also, orgasm isn't the only way to measure pleasurable
and satisfying sex, but it's often the easiest thing
for researchers to measure when doing these studies.
I actually talked to Becky Lund-Harket
all about pleasure research for an episode
of my podcast, "Doing It!", which you can listen to
if you want to learn more.
So we already have the pressure
from wanting to be sex-positive feminists
and close the orgasm gap.
But where else does the pressure
to improve or upgrade our orgasms come from?
Orgasms during partnered sex.
If we're already feeling the pressure
to have an orgasm, adding another person
into the mix isn't always going to make things easier.
Everyone is bringing their own baggage
to sexual encounters.
It's great when our partners are invested
in giving us pleasure and helping us reach orgasm,
but sometimes that investment can feel like added pressure.
Many people, myself included,
have had experiences when it feels like
our partner is very set on making us come,
but only to show off their own sexual skills,
rather than it being about making us feel good.
But there's also that space in between,
where your partner genuinely does want to make
you feel good, but even that can make us feel
like we need to come because they've spent
so much time and effort pleasuring us.
And when we feel like we should come,
that stress can actually make it harder
for us to get off.
And our emotions can get quite complicated,
when it comes to orgasms.
It's very normal if you sometimes have moments
of jealousy of your partner's orgasms,
mixed in with all of the happiness
that you made them come or that they experienced pleasure.
Sometimes you look at your partner
when they come and you're like, whoa,
that looked like a really good one,
and you're super happy for them,
but you're also like, ah, I wish I could experience that.
All of these feelings are okay and normal.
They're just part of navigating the pressure
and expectations we feel around sex.
So we feel a lot of pressure around being able
to orgasm, but what about the pressure
in terms of how we orgasm?
Are my orgasms good enough?
Spoiler alert, yes, your orgasms are good enough.
However, many of us have a lot of anxiety around this.
It's very common for us to compare
our orgasms to other people's,
or how they're portrayed in mainstream media and porn.
We ask questions like, should I be able to orgasm
just from nipple stimulation?
Or we might feel inferior when
we can't have a 20-minute-long orgasm
when we read that it's possible
to train yourself to do that.
In lots of sex-positive spaces,
it can feel like everyone is having the most mind-blowing,
amazing orgasms all of the time,
which can make us feel like we're
not doing it right if we're not.
You're not less sex-positive if
you're not having loads of orgasms.
Sex positivity should be about empowering
you to have the sex that you want,
including not having sex at all,
rather than making you feel sexually inferior.
Both mainstream media and porn have a part
to play in setting up these ideas
that our orgasms aren't good enough.
In the absence of comprehensive sex education,
we often look to them at realistic examples
of what sex looks like.
But they're not.
They're there to entertain us or turn us on
and we shouldn't compare our real-life sex to them.
We feel pressure to come as much
or as easily as we think other people are,
but we also worry about what types
of orgasms we should be having.
Types of orgasm.
Whilst people can orgasm in different ways
or from different body parts being stimulated,
there's no such thing as right
or better types of orgasm.
People can come from all sorts of different things,
from penetration, from clitoral stimulation,
from having their nipples played with,
from having their toes sucked,
from being spanked, from giving
your partner oral sex, from just thinking about sex.
Because humans love putting things
into categories, we like to sort
these different kinds of stimulation
into types of orgasm.
But in doing that, we can fall
into the trap of creating a hierarchy
and a to-do list for ourselves.
Click-bait-ey, or clit-bait-ey, if you will,
listicles about the seven types
of orgasm that every woman should experience
at least once can make us feel inferior
if we haven't experienced them all,
or if we come in one very specific way.
We feel pressure to have multiple orgasms,
to come from penetration, to come from nipple stimulation,
to squirt when we come, although,
as an aside, squirting is not the same thing
as an orgasm, but that is for a whole other day
and a whole other video.
However you orgasm, there's no one
or right way that it should happen.
Maybe you can only orgasm when you're
with a partner who you feel really comfortable
and secure with.
Or maybe you can only come during casual sex
because you feel like there's less pressure.
It's also totally normal if you can't come
without sex toys or if you can't come
during partner sex and can only get off on your own.
Physical and mental factors come into play,
like it can be harder to orgasm
if you're distracted or stressed.
And of course there's a bunch of other factors
that can affect our relationship
with our bodies, our pleasure, and orgasms,
like disability, chronic illness,
or female genital mutilation.
Equally, something that might work to get you off
might not work every time.
We're not machines, and the way
that we orgasm can change over time,
and even day-to-day.
Everything from finding it really easy
to orgasm, like just tensing and releasing
your pelvic floor, to having really pleasurable sex,
but without orgasm, is completely normal.
Your orgasms might feel different,
depending on the type of stimulation
that leads to it, or your orgasms might all feel the same.
But they are all still orgasms.
But even though there's no right way to orgasm
or better types of orgasm, there's still
a lot of pressure on us to improve
and optimise our orgasms.
Optimising our orgasms.
Today we are inundated with different sex toys,
sexual wellness apps, articles,
and courses that proclaim to help
us improve our orgasms and level up our sex lives.
It's not surprising that all of this can turn
into some kind of pleasure pressure
that feeds into the idea that
our orgasms aren't good enough.
The apps and toys and courses
that are available can definitely help people learn
more and feel more comfortable
in their bodies, and have better sex,
but their mere existence can also lead
us to feeling like we're doing something wrong
or that we need to be improving
our orgasms and sex lives.
In a highly capitalist society,
there's also this idea that you can buy
your way to good sex, which is something
that the journalist, Beth Ashley,
tackles in an article she wrote.
She says, "Selling better sex will always rely
"on us having bad sex, so no business can
"ever truly be the sex-positive saviour
"it's packaged as in Instagram ads.
"Plus, a lot of products are marketed
"around sexual problems like low libido,
"a lack of sex drive, or sex finishing quickly,
"which, in actuality, are not really problems at all.
"The issues these products promise
"to solve may be frustrating,
"but that doesn't mean they're not normal.
"Toys and other accessories aren't supposed
"to be a quick-fix for bad sex."
This feels like a really important part
of this conversation.
Are we being made to feel like
our orgasms aren't good enough
by companies who want to sell us things to fix us?
Obviously lots of sex educators selling courses
and companies in the sex tech
and femtech spaces have good intentions
and genuinely want to help people,
but it's definitely interesting
to think about who is telling us
that these things are problems to begin with.
It's also worth thinking about
how a lot of these apps and toys
and courses are marketed towards women
and people of marginalised genders.
Is all of this sexual development
another form of emotional labour
that's expected from us?
All of this makes me think of a quote
from Katherine Angel's book,
"Tomorrow Sex will be Good Again."
She says, "That great sex doesn't
"always come naturally is a useful insight.
"But it is overwhelmingly women
"who are expected to spend time
"and resources on this kind of work."
And this quote definitely applies
to other people of marginalised genders, not just women.
So what do we do with all of this pressure?
Moving towards pleasure as the goal.
When it comes to all of this pressure
and expectations around what sex
and orgasms should look like,
we do what we often have to do,
when it comes to things about sex.
We unlearn everything.
I never said this was gonna be easy.
This starts with little things,
talking to your partner about what
you want your sex to look like,
decentering orgasm and PIV sex,
or maybe even just forgetting about those things entirely
for a while, focusing on things
that make you feel good, even if
those things are necessarily what's going
to lead to an orgasm, and exploring
all of this in solo sex, too.
Some sex educators would describe
this as queering sex, which means
to approach sex through a perspective
that rejects traditional categories
of gender and sexuality and breaks
from cis-hetero patriarchal sexual scripts.
I recently talked to sex writer, Quinn Rhodes,
on my podcast all about this.
He talked about how things like introducing
more communication or spending more time working out
what actually feels good, or introducing
more playfulness into sex,
can all count as queering sex.
It's all about the idea that sex should look like
whatever you and your partner want it to look like.
You're definitely not alone if
you've felt pressure for your partnered
or solo sex to look a certain way,
and if you find it difficult to talk about
these things with your partner.
We're taught that we're not supposed
to talk about these things
or question the scripts that we've been given,
but those scripts don't work for everyone.
Far more important than focusing
on orgasms as a marker for good sex,
we should move towards centering pleasure.
Whatever you're doing, does it feel good
when you're engaging in partnered or solo sex?
Great, then that's what good sex looks like to you.
Hopefully something to think about the
next time you see an advice piece
about how to have bigger and better orgasms.
Thank you so much for joining me
on this exploration of the pressure
we might feel to always be improving our orgasms.
I hope you enjoyed this video.
I think it's really important that
we have these conversations,
because no one should be made to feel
like their orgasms aren't good enough.
Orgasms aren't be-all and end-all of sex,
and we need to normalise that.
And a special thanks to my Patreons
who help support me making these kinds of videos.
I hope that you're doing well,
and I'll see you in the next one.
Bye!
(chill music)