your orgasms are all wrong, part 1

You know what's been pissing me off lately? The need to dictate how women should have orgasms. Specifically, I'm talking about the controversy over clitoral vs. vaginal orgasms.

For years, Stuart Brody has been doing research, purporting to show that vaginal orgasms are superior to clitoral orgasms. But, goddamn it, he can't even get his terminology right. He defines a vaginal orgasm as one that occurs during penis-in-vagina sex, without simultaneously 'masturbating' the clitoris. The problem is, this definition tells us nothing about whether the orgasm was triggered through clitoral stimulation or vaginal stimulation.

Here's how I know. A male friend told me about an ex-girlfriend who was amazing in bed, because she could have 'vaginal' orgasms. Of course, I wanted to know her secret. He said she had to be on top, and she would grind her clit against his pubic bone until she got off. How was this a vaginal orgasm? It wasn't. It was a penis-in-vagina orgasm, it was a NO HANDS orgasm, but it was obviously clitoral in origin. A true vaginal orgasm is not simply one that occurs during PIV sex. It needs to be triggered by something other than the clitoris.

Let's look at some female anatomy. What we call the clitoris is really just the head of the clitoris. Most of the clitoris is internal to the woman's body. The clitoris develops out of the same fetal tissue that forms the penis in males. The head of the clitoris is analogous to the head of the penis. The tissue that, in males, develops into the shaft of the penis, in females, develops into the shaft and legs of the clitoris. The clitoral shaft is inside the woman's body, and extends back from the head of the clitoris, splitting into two legs on either side of the vaginal opening.

When a woman has a  vaginal orgasm, meaning an orgasm that isn't triggered by stimulation of the head of the clitoris, it is actually triggered by stimulation of the root of the clitoris (which comes close to the front wall of the vagina) or stimulation of the legs of the clitoris (on either side of the vaginal opening). That's right, a vaginal orgasm is still brought on by parts of the clitoris.

Let's do a thought experiment (even better, if you are a man or if you have a man handy, you could try this experiment in real life). Can a man have an orgasm through stimulation of only the shaft of the penis, with no touching of the head of the penis? This would be equivalent to a vaginal orgasm.

My guess is that, yes, many men could have orgasms by stimulating only the penile shaft. In fact, I would venture to hypothesize that the percentage of men who could have orgasms in this way would be almost identical to the percentage of women who have vaginal orgasms! That is, about 25% of women have never had a vaginal orgasm, another 75% occasionally or sometimes have one, and 25% almost always have one.

So why don't we have any real data about men and their ability to have penile-shaft-only orgasms? Because men don't stand for this kind of crap, that's why! If anyone is telling men that their orgasms are 'wrong,' men aren't listening.

Next post, I'll summarize Brody's research on vaginal orgasms. It's actually quite interesting, even though the conclusions I would draw from his data are diametrically opposed to the conclusions he draws.