1) The theory that the female orgasm works to get the jizz closer to the egg through muscle contraction is silly. This would only make sense if women frequently came a)through intercourse; and b) within seconds after the guy banging them came. Neither a) nor b) are true.

2) It's funny how the most of the same people getting up in arms about describing the female orgasm as "by-product" are criticizing those who suggest this theory as having their thinking "influenced by culture/norms/society, etc." Have any of you ever considered that giving a shit whether your orgasms are an evolutionary advantage or an evolutionary accident is also an example of having your reasoning abilities clouded by "culture/norms/society, etc."? As if women are somehow lesser than men if their orgasms are less linked to reproduction. Now that's buying into the dominant paradigm.


3) @102 has a great point. Female mate selection is often couched in terms of all women wanting the biggest, strongest, guy (and many do), but the guy who pays the most attention is bringing a lot to the table vis-a-vis survival of one's offspring, and most women require attention to come. (*Charlie, you are still wrong about selfish douches not getting laid. Alas.)

Dan: "Harassment and cyber-harassment don’t become crimes only after the target commits suicide. They’re crimes, period, and they should be investigated and prosecuted."

No, not all harassment qualifies as "crime", and the cops do not have the resources to "investigate" every time a kid harasses another kid, nor do district attorneys have the resources to prosecute every time-even assuming that the particular harassment is criminal. For a guy whose greatest weapon is reason, you are engaging in hysteria.

(No, I do not think it is hysteria to care about kids who kill themselves, I just don't think the cops and DAs should be playing an active role in trying to preempt this. And, for the record, I think you are an American hero.)

Hey FAP! I also hadn't had an orgasm til age 26. I was convinced I'd never have one. I realize my method won't work for everyone...

I had also had lots of patient, attentive male partners who tried really hard, and I always felt like I was disappointing them despite all that when I didn't come. It gave me such great pleasure to bring them to climax, and I thought it wasn't fair that I couldn't provide them with the same experience.

Then I got together with a girl for the first time, and within weeks had my first orgasm. Part of it was simply getting to feel what her orgasms felt like - no amount of description can really explain what a woman's orgasm is like, and they're nothing like men's. I think another part of it (and this may not at all be your experience) is that somewhere, I couldn't really accept that my "parts" were truly attractive, and that someone could genuinely find them sexy. But when I was in a situation where I found another woman's vagina incredibly sexy, it became a lot easier to accept that mine, too, is a sexual object, and sexy, etc etc.

It'll happen for you, one way or another - the worst thing was focusing on it and not being able to really chase away the idea that there was this *thing* that was supposed to be happening, but wasn't. So try to let that go if you can - you're a stronger person than me if you succeed!!

It took me five years to have an orgasm after I first started to become sexually active. Partly it was getting to know my body and being more relaxed, though that doesn't sound like the OP's issue. Just because it isn't happening now doesn't mean it never will.

I haven't had time yet to read through all the other comments because I feel compelled to say that I wish Dan would be a little more critical of his use of evo psych. Calling it "science" is an insult to science, as it emerges from and holds to a very small set of male-centric viewpoints, collapsing hundreds of thousands of years of variations across human cultures into really simple explanations.

Scientifically, all human beings start out as female, not male. So if orgasm is "meant" for men but a mere "byproduct" for women, it would develop after the introduction of testosterone just like penises and testes do.

And once again, because this "scientific field" is dominated by men, it sees male orgasm as the be all end all of reproductive "fitness."

Well, I was under the understanding that female orgasm leads to the cervix opening and dipping down, making it more likely for sperm to get access to the goods. It also is perfectly reasonable to argue that women who experience orgasm will seek out more sex, making them more "reproductively fit" than women who don't, not to mention they would be more selective in their choice of mates, disregarding those who see their sexual pleasure as a reproductive "byproduct."

In my experience as both a science major in college and a humanities Ph.D., evo psych-ers will cram any set of data through a very narrow lens, willfully ignoring conflicting evidence and a more nuanced understanding of human anatomy and behavior.

@111:

As I understand it, the byproduct hypothesis doesn't really fall under the rubric of evo-psych. After all, it's the evo-psychers who come up with a just-so story to explain the adaptive value of every behavioral trait they happen to observe -- up to and including female orgasm. Anybody who says "hey, maybe this behavior isn't the product of direct selection" is already operating outside the dominant evo-psych paradigm.

To be fair, the man who first proposed the byproduct hypothesis, Donald Symons, has drunk deep of the evo-psych Kool Aid. But I don't think that's an accurate criticism of Elisabeth Lloyd -- who, in addition to being one the most prominent proponents of the byproduct hypothesis, also happens to be a woman and a feminist.

Finally, because I'm feeling lazy, I'm going to copy and paste from one of my previous comments: counterintuitive though it may seem, statistics show that female orgasmic capacity does not correlate with frequency of sexual activity. In other words, an anorgasmic woman is just as likely to have intercourse as a multiorgasmic one.

Although I generally agree with the vast majority of the points made, the insistence that homophobia is merely and entirely a subset of misogyny just feels like being erased and told to sit down and shut up. I don't think anyone intended it that way.

@111:

Also, while the claim that "all humans start out as female" surfaces regularly in high school biology classes and pop-science publications, it really isn't true. All humans start out with the same gonadal precursor cells, which the undergo sexual differentiation as the embryo develops. And while it was long believed (and is still widely repeated) that the default developmental pathway was female, it turns out that's not really true either.

*then undergo sexual differentiation

(Damn, I wish we could edit comments.)

That theory about female orgasms being a hand-me-down sounds like complete and utter bullshit. We don't start off as genetically sexless blobs. We are female in the womb until the genes that make us otherwise are turned on. If anything, the male orgasm is a byproduct of females being able to have orgasms. ANYTHING on the male anatomy is a byproduct of having been female at one point. Evolution can favor the male orgasm all it wants, the fact of the matter is, males wouldn't be able to have them if women couldn't.

@111: Your understanding about the cervix "dipping down" is incorrect. It turns out it doesn't actually do that. I think Echizen already pointed that out, as well as her mentioning that Lloyd's research shows women who orgasm more don't actually have more sex or enjoy sex more.

@111, 112: And unless you're a creationist, you believe that the human mind evolved. Hence, it is legitimate to study the evolution of human psychology. It's usually the media who oversimplifies legitimate complex research and makes it male-centric, not the actual research itself.

While people who research ev psych do try to guess and theorize why a trait may have been adaptive, the "default" explanation is that it isn't. It's just there. That's the null hypothesis. Anything else requires evidence.

What ev psych researchers actually do is try to find evidence that some traits evolved for some adaptive purpose, and then test their theory with experiments, not just make up a "just-so story" for every observed trait.

#9, beautifully said! Sexism is a rampant problem--perhaps even greater than racism. Yet people get away w/ misogynistic remarks in the media, socially, in education--everywhere! I'm constantly surprised that the women's and LGBT movements haven't joined forces more effectively.

Don't have time to read all these comments, but ditto on the "it's largely mental" comment your doctor made, FAP. If I don't think I'm going to get off, I don't. It took me a long time to learn to do it with a partner, because once the pattern of not getting off established itself, I found it hard to expect it to continue. First step for you is learning to do it yourself. Get a vibrator or 5 and give yourself all the time in the world to pay attention to whatever your body likes. Then talk to your partner and try to replicate that with him around. Once it happens once, you'll be well on your way.

I am not a spiritual or religious person, but I have FAITH in my ability to have orgasms with a partner. I'm sure the process varies for everyone. Some require a new partner or new toy or a better body image or something else altogether. For me, focusing on just how good everything feels really helps push me over the edge. Instead of thinking "what will get me off" during sex, let your brain be overcome by any nice sensation you're getting and bask in them. Banish all thoughts of doubt and focus only on how good you feel. Communicating with your partner and having him keep you focused on what's hot may help you out. You'll get there. Just keep your head in the sexy and away from the "will I get there?" worries.

@120: The problem is that there seem to be some people (both men and women) who feel very frustrated or unsatisfied without orgasm, and other people who are perfectly capable of thinking about how awesome the sex is without orgasm. I don't know if it's possible to change this or not.

For me, "Banish all thoughts of doubt" (@119) is like "not thinking of the word elephant" (@120). That's where stories come in. When I'm reading, if it's a good story, I'm in the story, not in my head trying to avoid thinking of elephants. The problem with that is that one doesn't always want to be reading or imagining a story.

I have also found it helpful to pick an image that represents my own arousal, and think of it every time I'm getting close to orgasm. It's not second-nature yet, but the image definitely feels less artificial and more arousing than it did when I started a few months ago. (This idea is borrowed from Susan Crain Bakos' The Orgasm Loop.)

@125: Yeah, except that the evidence shows that's not true. Women who don't have orgasms have the same amount of sex as women who have a lot.

@117 I work in a department that has an evo psych professor, and I have personally seen his course materials. His arguments are as simplistic as i've mentioned, so much so that his younger colleagues are trying to have his course phased out. Anecdotes abound of students getting poor grades in his classes if they question the line.

I once attended a talk by one of his other evo pscyh colleagues and watched the guy dismiss the entire fields of psychology, anthropology, sociology and cultural history because they don't, as he very simplistically and childishly argued, take into consideration the absolute primacy of male competition for access to females as the driver of human behavior and societal development. (As I would warn my own students in my own history course, be wary of any person who can so easily dismiss entire lines of knowledge in but a breath--they are usually not credible sources.)

So, no, I wasn't referring to pop psychology or media coverage of evo psych--I was referring the evo psych professor I personally know, having read his course materials and talked with his other colleagues (both in his field and in opposition to it).

@114: I'll admit that I was a biology major a long long time ago, but I learned that across the animal kindgom that the default is female (that males evolved as species grew more complex), and, in humans, that all babies develop as female unless testosterone redirects development... that's why a human that is genetically XY (i.e. genetically male) who either doesn't produce testosterone or doesn't respond to testosterone will develop, by and large, as a female.

My point wasn't to say in response to "men come first, women is byproduct," that "no, women come first, male is byproduct" (although i think evolutionary the latter is closer to the truth), but to point out that there is a serious bias inherent in some evo psych work that sets maleness as the standard and posits that all human behavior and cultures derive simply and solely from mate access, mate competition, and biologically-determinist understandings of reproduction.

As for those who claim that inorgasmic women have sex as frequently as orgasmic women, that says nothing to pregnancy rates, variations across cultures (e.g. a culture that puts a primacy on virginity and female chastity vs., say, older cultures where the science of paternity wasn't known), and the simple fact of whether said women know their own bodies or have loving sex partners. I'm sorry, but I have a hard time reading a gay man use "science" to say to an adult woman who's never had an orgasm, "Well, sweetie, female orgasm is just a byproduct anyway so you might not be able to." FUCK. THAT.

I think Dan should look up the history of hysteria dating back to ancient Greece, where for milennia sexually frustrated women would seek medical doctors to masturbate them to orgasm to "cure" their "pathological" uteri. In fact, the original vibrators were made only for this "medical" purpose, and initially only sold to medical doctors as a "medical" procedure. Said doctors, all men, insisted that this "treatment" wasn't sexual because it didn't involve vaginal penetration. Talk about bias passed off as science!

So, seriously, take pause when you have male experts waxing wise on the biological "worth" of the female orgasm, especially within a culture notoriously afraid of female sexuality. Just sayin'.

@128: You seem very confused. Whether something is adaptive or just a byproduct has nothing whatsoever to do with its "worth" in any sense. No one is saying that female orgasms are worth less because they're byproducts.

Nor is anyone saying that the reason some women might not be able to have an orgasm is that female orgasm is a byproduct. It's true that some women seem to be wired to not be orgasmic, but this issue has nothing to do with whether or not female orgasm is a byproduct. For instance, heterosexuality is adaptive, but obviously not everyone is wired to be heterosexual, just because of variation in humans.

The idea of a trait being a "byproduct" is that it didn't directly evolve to help people survive and reproduce. There's a great deal of natural variation in humans, both in adaptive and in "byproduct" traits.

There are bad professors in every field, and I'm sorry to hear about your experiences with that one. As his younger colleagues demonstrate by trying to get him phased out, not everyone is like that and there's a lot more to ev psych than the oversimplistic crap he's saying. In fact, a lot of ev psych has nothing to do with sex whatsoever.

The “byproduct” theory doesn’t make much sense from a biological standpoint. Granted, it's feasible that selection for females with “easy orgasm” genes could be due only to their male offspring being likelier to reproduce (with easier, more impregnating orgasms), and not due to any direct effect of easier orgasms on the females that have these genes.

However, that explanation is only “feasible.” I don’t think it’s the most likely one, or even a very likely one. For one thing, to believe that approach, you have to believe that how much sex a woman seeks is completely irrelevant to reproduction. The orgasm, from a reproductive standpoint, is an incentive to have sex. Just as “easier orgasms” make males more likely to inseminate (and reproduce), they ALSO make females more likely to seek sex (and reproduce).

The only way that the female orgasm would be irrelevant is if females were completely passive (or even resistant) to sex, and it therefore made no difference whether they desired sex or not. Some animals do reproduce this way, but since humans aren’t one of these species, our female orgasms are as relevant as our male orgasms.

Which is actually a good strategy, evolution-wise: the “male-on-female quasi-rape” reproduction strategy allows males to be discerning and seek out females with desirable traits, indicating that they are healthy and would create healthy offspring. However, females under this reproductive strategy are unable to be discerning, so for males, it only selects for enough aggression and physical strength to temporarily overpower a female.

In species where the female also discerningly selects mates, males are also selected according to their attractiveness (which indicates health and fitness). This allows for selection of a broader variety of favorable genetic traits. The resulting offspring will (presumably) have all the best genes from both its parents, as opposed to just one parent.

This type of selection is present when both sexes have an incentive to select some individuals over others as sex partners. This type of “preference” requires some sort of sex drive. For humans, a big part of our sex drive is our “drive” to have an orgasm. So for humans, male and female orgasms are both incentives to select some mates over others: a more attractive mate is more likely to give you that orgasm that is motivating you to have sex in the first place.

I don’t dispute that men, on average, orgasm more easily than women (individual results may vary. A lot). I also won’t dispute that this is probably due to the fact that men’s orgasms are the ones that actually mix the gametes. But in order for those gametes to mix, a female has to be PRESENT, doesn’t she? And her ability and motivation to orgasm makes that likelier.

So the take-home message:

1) Males who orgasm more easily are likelier to seek sex with a healthy female, likelier to successfully fertilize each time, and (therefore) likelier to have healthy offspring.

2) Females who orgasm more easily are likelier to seek sex with a healthy male and (therefore) likelier to have healthy offspring.

The number of direct evolutionary benefits may be greater (by one) for males than for females. But since they’re not completely absent from females, the “byproduct” theory is weak.

To FAP:
I didn't have an orgasm until I was around 25 or 26. A huge part of it was because of my religious upbringing. It was really hard to get warmed up and feel the subtleties of genital sensation, and once there it was really easy to shut down and feel nothing at all, no matter how well it had been going. There was no downward slide, it just went from ON to OFF at any negative thought (such as "This is taking so long, what's wrong with me?" etc). I've seen the advice not to focus on the finish line and I would definitely agree with that, because if you focus on it, it just keeps the fact that you're NOT orgasming present in your mind and makes it harder to do so.

What ultimately worked for me was to decide it was fine if I didn't come, I was just going to feel good. Without stressing out about orgasms it was just fun for however long it lasted, and slowly my mental habits turned around and I was able to orgasm. Everyone has a different technique or toy that does or does not work for them, so I don't think there's a magic formula there, it's just keeping the blood flow going and the pleasure building and not turning the Eye of Sauron on them. I found pot to also be helpful. It takes the over-thinking out of it and heightens your physical perceptiveness.

Good luck!
-Rain

Sex is kinda like food. You don't know if you'll like it till you try it. So many suggestions and ideas. Here are a few more. First of all, congratulations to the boyfriend for thinking of your needs too. My wife has told me that none of the men she has been with really cared whether she had an orgasm or not, until she met me. I have found that since she really never took the time to find out about her own solo experience, that the idea of "maybe she should think about her own solo experience" is so new to her, that she still does not know exactly what to do to get her self off and to her, it is not that important. Than she has an orgasm and she enjoys it very much.
My feeling is, it should be that important to her. Not the pressure of but the enjoyment of self. Clitoral orgasms are not something she has, and who knows why. But there is one spot deep inside her vagina, that does drive her crazy if she is relaxed enough to enjoy it. Hot tubs work great to bring blood and engorgement to the area for her. Finding the right lube is another plus. Attitude and the quieting of the mind is essential for her, so I see why the pot may be a good idea too.
Don't forget the whole body is a sexual organ. Breasts, nipples, finger tips, anal area, feet kissing, kissing, I think you get the idea. If you haven't hit all the areas, you are doing yourself a diservice.
Treat yourself special, get a massage, read a sexy book, just enjoy getting your boyfriend off, try a girl friend........ lots of thoughts and ideas. Your special believe it, know it, enjoy it all, and if it happens great, if not, the journey is still exciting.

@128. I'm not confused one bit. The premise that goes into this passage...

“Evolutionary selection has hugely favored the male orgasm, for obvious reasons,” explains Clark-Flory, the most obvious being that males who can’t come aren’t going to have many descendants. “The byproduct theory goes that since females share the same embryological origins of pleasure-friendly nerves and tissues as males, women are physically capable of climaxing as well. In this view, the female orgasm is an evolutionary hand-me-down—or, more cynically, lukewarm leftovers.”

... is that orgasm has evolved solely for male ejaculation and that male ejaculation is solely for biological reproduction. Well, call me "confused," but I think orgasm makes both men and women seek out sex, I think orgasms relieve stress, I think orgasms bring intimacy, solace and joy to people's lives and relationships irrespective of whether or not they lead to babies.

The operating premise of this, "Wow, female orgasm is kind of biologically unnecessary, and therefore must just be a byproduct of male development" is implicitly biased in the exact biologically-deterministic thinking I was describing above. The preoccupation with biological reproduction as the only logical explanation for something's evolutionary endurance is a narrow analysis, that's all i'm saying.

And, lukewarm? The clitoris has how many fold more nerve endings than the penis? Woman, not men, are capable of orgasms that last minutes at a time, that roll one after the other, that wrack the entire body... to say that these are "lukewarm leftovers" is evidence of bias going into these "studies," not my "confusion."

@9 & @118: Spot on, both of you. I agree!

Come on, Dan. No misogynist undertones, please.

I can't decide if a little science help sex or ruins it completely. Still working to figure it out...

also, something gasoline-powered might work for FAP, preferrably something with a lawn-mower-type pull starter.

jill
http://inbedwithmarriedwomen.blogspot.co…

of course there's a reason wh the female orgasm exists...I didn't bother to read every single one of these posts but biology classes have repeatedly informed me that women orgasm so the muscular spasm will carry the man's ejaculate upwards so pegnancy will occur. Also to release oxytocin making a woman feel more attached towards her partner to sustain the relationship into parenthood.

Everything is about evolution.

of course there's a reason wh the female orgasm exists...I didn't bother to read every single one of these posts but biology classes have repeatedly informed me that women orgasm so the muscular spasm will carry the man's ejaculate upwards so pegnancy will occur. Also to release oxytocin making a woman feel more attached towards her partner to sustain the relationship into parenthood.

Everything is about evolution.

Holy misconceptions about evolution, Batman!

I think BlackRose is holding down the science fort admirably, though I'm not sure how many more times it has to be said that 'having an orgasm' does not seem to be correlated to 'seeking sexual behavior' in women...

Whoever said selection has to operate on females because we're all female in the womb (not so true), etc? Just, no. Sexual selection in particular operates on MEN, because in many, many (many) species, lots of whom are our ancestors and contributed many genes to our genomes, females are in charge of mate choice, so selection for sex-related stuff is operating PRIMARILY in males and SECONDARILY in females. Y'all don't even need to bring natural selection into this argument.

Also, citations to PubMed or it didn't happen. Pop sci articles are not really useful to evaluate a research study's worth.

@ahaar

Everything may be about evolution, but that doesn't mean that every trait/behavior/minute detail of physiology has a reason and is acutely adaptive.

Genomes are a messy, messy place, folks.

I took a while - 13 years! - to work out how to come and, funnily enough, I too wondered if I was broken. I had been trying lots of penetration and very carefully avoiding the oversensitive little bump at the top of my slit.

Touching my clit made me almost feel ill with the intensity of sensation. My first climax happened when I just persisted past the point of discomfort.

For me, vibrators have never really worked. They are too samey and too buzzy. Filthy fantasy+fingers are the most reliable method but women are all very different so experiment.

I find the second part of this week's column very saddening, but...

I'm also bothered by the answer given to that poor non-orgasmic woman. Dan's response was disheartening, and to a degree, dismissive. Try telling my clitoris that it's a lukewarm leftover, lol... Is it possible that we've become too conditioned to dismiss the female orgasm as something bordering on myth??? The female reproductive system is such a complex thing.

I'm not a scientist (far from it), but I always thought evolutionary biology was about genetic propagation, a genes desire to be expressed I guess.... so why wouldn't females evolve to desire to propagate just like men supposedly do?

@FAP

http://dodsonandross.com/ is a sex information website that covers a range of topics, including female orgasm. It's run by Betty Dodson (sex-positive feminist icon and inventor of the vibrator) and provides specific (and encouraging!) tutorials.

Betty Dodson has been helping women figure out how to orgasm for over 40 years. I promise, if you visit this site, you'll find the information and encouragement that you need to achieve orgasm.

Good luck in your quest, and have fun practicing!

@FAP

http://dodsonandross.com/ is a sex information website that covers a range of topics, including female orgasm. It's run by Betty Dodson (sex-positive feminist icon and inventor of the vibrator) and provides specific (and encouraging!) tutorials.

Betty Dodson has been helping women figure out how to orgasm for over 40 years. I promise, if you visit this site, you'll find the information and encouragement that you need to achieve orgasm.

Good luck in your quest, and have fun practicing!

My 2 cents: Male and Female orgasm is exactly the same, and as difficult for a man to achieve as a woman.

Ejaculation isn't orgasm.

I only have orgasms with partners I've been with for a while, and there is a good amount of trust.

I love having sex, it feels damn good when I cum, but orgasms are WAY more intense, it's like I lose control of my body and basically have a convulsion, and kind of, laugh. . .

And just so I make sure I'm popular here. . .I believe it's MORE difficult for men to have orgasms because we think ejaculation is the end-product, and because socially we are taught to be stoic, rigid and powerful, to maintain control etc. All leading to sense-repression and less orgasms.

WOW, Dan. Because of your Lovecast I am a (surprising) admirer of the work of Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jetha and I find it awwwwfully surprising that you would concur the female orgasm is a "byproduct" of male anatomy. The Y chromosome is an evolutionary afterthought meant to diversify a gene pool; furthermore, if we are going into the "byproducts" of anatomy it is outright absurd to suggest that female anatomy and orgasmic capacity is simply a byproduct of male anatomy and capacity; male anatomy exists to diversify, and though it is evolutionary it is not ... well, necessary. The fact that women have (amazing) orgasmic capacity and that (in our culture) women are puzzles wrapped in enigmas lends itself directly to what Sex at Dawn was trying to get across: gender, propriety, and personal and social expectations have wayyyy too much interference in the pleasure of sex. When a woman can't come, it's probably because she Is Not Turned On. Broken byproduct? Hardly. She needs to figure out what is BORING her, scaring her, or causing her to feel disinterested - I have a feeling it's her relationship or the stress she encounters on a daily basis or the repression of desires - probably all of the above. Byproduct... jeeeeeeeez. Maybe dicks (especially one at a time from a domestic partner) aren't as interesting as our culture cracks them up to be.

First: For everyone telling the ladies to "not get in a huff about it", check yourself. Check your own biases at the door, and educate yourselves about a little something called feminine deferentiality. Ah-thank you.

WOW, Dan. Because of your Lovecast I am a (surprising) admirer of the work of Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jetha and I find it awwwwfully surprising that you would concur the female orgasm is a "byproduct" of male anatomy. The Y chromosome is an evolutionary afterthought meant to diversify a gene pool; furthermore, if we are going into the "byproducts" of anatomy it is outright absurd to suggest that female anatomy and orgasmic capacity is simply a byproduct of male anatomy and capacity. Male anatomy exists to diversify, and though it is evolutionary it is not ... well, necessary. Penises are shaped the way they are shaped BECAUSE vaginas are shaped the way they are shaped. The fact that women have (amazing) orgasmic capacity and that (in our culture) women are puzzles wrapped in enigmas lends itself directly to what Sex at Dawn was trying to get across: gender, propriety, and personal and social expectations have wayyyy too much interference in the pleasure of sex. When a woman can't come, it's probably because she Is Not Turned On. Broken byproduct? Hardly. She needs to figure out what is BORING her, scaring her, or causing her to feel disinterested - I have a feeling it's her relationship or the stress she encounters on a daily basis or the repression of desires - probably all of the above. Byproduct... jeeeeeeeez. Maybe dicks (especially one at a time from a domestic partner) aren't as interesting as our culture cracks them up to be.

FAP, try "For Yourself" by Lonnie Barbach. 100% success for 3 girls I knew in a similar situation.

FAP-- you're ahead of me. I was *in my 40s* before I had an orgasm. I have childhood sexual abuse in my background, was exhausted from kids, etc etc. I highly recommend a vibrator, which was how I finally had my first one. Getting there felt entirely different than what I was expecting, so without the vibrator I might never have made it. Now that I know how it feels, I've been able to figure out how to do it without aid, but I'm not sure I ever would have gotten there the first time without it. Good luck. It is definitely worth the effort. ;-)

Try "For Yourself" by Lonnie Barbach. Follow the instructions, 100% success rate for several girls I know.

@BlackRose:

No, I'm not one of those dreaded "blank slaters." I don't believe that we only evolved from the neck down. I cheerfully accept the fundamental premise of evolutionary psychology -- that our cognition and behavior has been shaped by our evolutionary history.

But as I see it, while the field of evolutionary psychology may produce some sound science, it also churns out a whole lot of teleologically driven, methodologically sloppy, unfalsifiable bullshit -- and a lot of that bullshit just so happens to be massively sexist. And yes, this is true at the Serious Academic™ as well as the pop science level. I mean, Roy Baumeister's 2007 address to the APA? Palmer and Thornhill's "A Natural History of Rape" (published by MIT Press)? As the cool kids used to say, gag me with a fucking spoon.

When googling to find the inventor of the vibrator (various sorts attributed to George Taylor, Joseph Mortimer Granville and Jon H. Tavel in the 1880s, not Betty Dodson as 143 asserts), I found a good list of the sorts of vibrators on the wikipedia page. I stand by my earlier advice to try whatever it takes but to start small.

@Maddy811:

I'm sorry, but I have a hard time reading a gay man use "science" to say to an adult woman who's never had an orgasm, "Well, sweetie, female orgasm is just a byproduct anyway so you might not be able to." FUCK. THAT.

That's not at all the way I read it (and I'm speaking as a not-very-orgasmic woman myself). FAP said she feels "broken," and unfortunately, and I know exactly where she's coming from. I'm not totally anorgasmic, but I can only orgasm with the aid of a vibrator, and over the years I've gotten a fair amount of flak from various friends, sex partners, and other armchair sex therapists who claimed that I "should" be able to orgasm "naturally" (i.e., without a vibrator).

I've heard about a thousand and one variations on one underlying theme: UR DOIN IT WRONG. I'm inhibited; I'm neurotic; I have some sort of unresolved sexual trauma; I need to wean myself off my "vibrator addiction"; I need to experiment more; I need to communicate more; I need to eat more Omega-3 fatty acids; I need to breathe more; and so on ad nauseam. None of this advice was maliciously intended, but taken together, it adds up to one very damaging message: you're broken.

And yeah, if all women are naturally equipped with the capacity for easy multiorgasmic bliss, then maybe I am broken. But if -- as per the byproduct hypothesis -- female orgasm is an "evolutionary freebie" that may or may not be in the genetic makeup of any given healthy, normal woman, then I'm not broken; I'm just me.

What if it turns out FAP is never able to orgasm? Or she's only able to orgasm in a narrow set of circumstances, with a lot of effort? These are real possibilities, and Dan was right to acknowledge them. Sure, he could have issued some grand politico-sexual manifesto about women's universal entitlement to sexual pleasure, and assured FAP that she absolutely can orgasm, it's her natural female birthright and she just needs to figure out what she's doing wrong . . . but no matter how much he dressed it up in sex-positive feminist rhetoric, he'd still be confirming her original fear that she's "broken." Somehow, I doubt that sort of "advice" would have helped FAP; it certainly never helped me.

not even accurate anymore on the byproduct theory, dan. that's old non-science, the product of a bunch of men sitting around discussing why it didn't matter if they couldn't get their wives off and just dissing women in general. new, actual science, actually shows that female orgasm DOES have a role in reproduction, largely shunting the sperm into the correct location faster. so check the dates on your studies and try harder next time.

I cannot tell you how much this column means to me. I was actually in the shower today thinking of writing the EXACT same letter to Dan (28 year old straight woman, in an amazing relationship, have never come with a partner and rarely on my own, really sad and frustrated) only to find someone had just written it. Please continue to post ideas in the comments, it means a lot. I will be buying and using a vibrator soon.

@158 - buy three different kinds, please! Make one a Hitachi Magic Wand, one a Rabbit, and one whatever looks appealing to you!

Women's orgasms ARE a product of evolution...but no one here mentioned the most obvious reason:

Women NEED to orgasm in order to balance their hormone levels. It's an evolutionary by-product, but it has nothing to do with making babies. (Although a woman is more likely to conceive if she's healthy; so in that sense, it does).
See valid research here:

http://www.waiworld.com/waisays/other/cl…

I agree that evo-psych is male-centric and insulting...but only because our patriarchal culture makes it so. (Which is a shame, because it IS totally valid.)

scientists of all stripes have been struggling for decades to determine why the female orgasm even exists in the first place
-------
Um, what? This is one female who can tell those scientists that, after some awkward attempts and embarrassing moments, the female orgasm is alive and well, thank you! Don't give up, FAP, and don't pressure yourself (that would be the *worst* thing you can do.) Keep experimenting, have fun, enjoy the moment, and you will find pleasure...

To complete that web address...
waiworld.com/waisays/other/clitoral.html

I have cried for Jamey Rodemeyer, although I never met him, and for his parents' heartbreak. They obviously did as much as they thought they could for their child, who was in therapy. Too often, we hear that a person who has taken his own life "seemed better in the last few days." That is a potential warning sign.

Kids can be cruel, teachers and school administration are often complicit in the bullying because they are too busy to deal with the bullying or because they are themselves bigoted.

While I do hope for significant societal change and I believe in working toward that goal, I also believe that some children cannot stay at school where the bullying takes place as part of the day. Home schooling is a valid option and there are so many ways to home school now. Many states offer tuition free virtual schools and there are many other fine home schooling programs at a range of price tags. Being bullied isn't "character building;" it's demoralizing. Telling your child to "Stick it out and put up with it" is telling your child "the bullies are the normal ones, you are getting what you deserve."

My 16-year-old home schools. His social group is diverse in every sense of the word. I have never met nicer, more supportive or well-grounded teens as the kids in this close-knit group of 15 - 19 year olds who have so much fun learning from and with one another as well as engaging in the usual teen activities.

If the neighborhood kids are bullies, then monitor like crazy or move. If school is a toxic environment, change educational plans. If it's online bullying, insist for your child's protection that you have access to his / her account and monitor it.

It Gets Better. And there's no shame in making it better by removing the kid from a bad situation.

For FAP,
I received some bodywork to my pelvic and sacral regions that subsequently helped me reach my first orgasms. (I'm not referring to sensual massage, though that might be helpful as well.) My practitioner was working on general alignment issues, and by releasing areas of restriction, it benefited my sex life.

@164: Right on!!! I could not have said it any better!

Bullying really sucks shit. I went to a "Calvin-and-Hobbes"-like rural school district K through 12 that was SO insular that if your grandmother didn't go to the same school as theirs, you were believed to be from Mars.

If I didn't finally have three great close friends, and be blessed with a really cool, supportive teacher by high school, I would have dropped out years ago, and maybe run away from home.
Rest in peace, Jamey Rodemeyer, and condolences to all who knew you.

Hmm...seems like my comment didn't post as I'm new at this...forgive me if I'm wrong, but I'll try again.
For FAP to consider....
I received some bodywork to the sacral and pelvic region that subsequently helped me have my first orgasms. I'm not referring to sensual massage, though that could be probably be helpful too. Rather, my practitioner was working on some general alignment issues using the Rolf Method, and she released some restrictions in the pelvic musculature that I think were impairing optimal nerve and blood flow in subtle ways.

I saw that video, he seemed like such a sweet kid. I'm so sorry that he was treated this way.

Francis Phillips's piece in the Catholic Herald now has comments closed but quite a lot of people have come down on Dan's side. Also Dan made the justifiable mistake in assuming Francis is - or was - a man. Actually she is a woman. Her name is the only thing transgendered it seems.

C'mon, leave the GOP out of it. Your schtick's getting old, Dan.

@156. I want to say I'm sorry to you, but fear that you may file that under comments about you being presumed broken. However, I am sorry that the people you've confided in have made you feel broken. The would-be diagnoses and presumption of pathology are infuriating and I can imagine how exhausting the various suggestions would be in that context even if they were offered with sincerity.

If you look at my posts, however, notice that I didn't really preoccupy myself with the personal struggle of the woman in question. My concerns were with extrapolating from the woman's very personal struggle to claiming a scientific basis for a claim that ALL woman's orgasms are "lukewarm leftovers" to male development. Not only does that not align even a little with my undergraduate courses in evolution and human development (I majored in developmental biology), but it strikes me as a sexist bias that I've seen all too often in a subset of academic work within "evo psych." An analagous kind of bad reasoning would be to point to an example of a single asexual woman (i.e. one with no desire for sex with other people) and from there say that even sexual desire is not really an evolutionary "necessity" for women as it is men.

This byproduct theory also, as I mentioned, ignores that women have an orgasmic sexual capacity that exceeds men once women are fully aroused, something that I all too often have to argue with women who claim that because it hasn't happened to them personally that I must be exaggerating or lying. So my frustration comes from the much opposite ends of yours--being told that women don't have g-spots, cannot ejaculate, cannot have multiple orgasms, cannot have full-body orgasms, etc. And, again, as I mentioned earlier, hundreds of generations of sexually frustrated women were diagnosed "hysterics" and manually masturbated by doctors to "cure" them, but the fear of female sexuality and male-bias in the "sciences" allowed that to be framed as a disease with a cure that "didn't count" as sex. So we have a long long history of ALL women's sex being DEFINED, against the male standard, as "broken."

Maybe this byproduct theory provides you personal comfort. If it does, bravo to you. But I find it evidence of the tautology and sexist presumptions that in some cases linger and in others pervade "studies" that reduce the complexity of human behavior and sex practices in collectively harmful ways little different than the sexist blindsides around the "hysteria" diagnosis. Dan could have said, "Well, maybe you should just accept your body for your body and let it go," without having to advance some unscientific nonsense about how female orgasm is a byproduct of male development.

@Maddy811:

I really, really think you should read Elisabeth Lloyd's book, because as it stands now, your critique of the byproduct hypothesis strikes me as being extremely off-base. Also, because I'm tired and feeling cranky, I'm going to come right out and say it: if you majored in developmental biology and you still think "all human beings start out as female," you should return your diploma and ask for your money back.

I mean, the bottom line here is this: from an evolutionary standpoint, do you seriously think that female orgasm would be anywhere near as strongly selected for as male orgasm? I just don't see how any thinking person can make that argument. Female orgasm could conceivably assist in reproduction (although the evidence for this is extremely flimsy), but it sure as hell ain't necessary for reproduction. Male orgasm is. An anorgasmic male is a genetic dead end; an anorgasmic female isn't. I'm sorry if you think that's somehow denigrating to female sexuality, but them's the facts.

Naturally, anything that might be construed as saying women aren't superior to men is instantly politicized, deconstructed in the most unflattering way through a hyperfeminist prism. You can almost count on that reaction. I too have seen some evolutionary psychology that seems to be little more than [unfalisifiable] speculation. But I do find it ironic that many arguments against it seem to come from one of the most prolific bullshit factories of all: Women's Studies.

I'm impressed with all the varied (and good) advice for FAP. I didn't have my first orgasm with a partner until I was 23, though I had been having them on my own for years.

Someone earlier (no idea how far back at this point) mentioned Betty Dodson. One of the things that I realized looking at her site was just how often women tend to expect an orgasm to be a mind blowing thing. We read in books and see on tv and in movies these super amazing climaxes, and we tend to think that anything less is not an orgasm. Now, this may not be your problem, but you may want to reconsider what an orgasm is. There are people who have been having them for a long time, and didn't realize it because they didn't fly off the bed when it happened.

Of course, there are other mental and physical barriers as well. And sometimes the combination can be brutal. Part of the reason that I was unable to orgasm with a partner was trust. Until my first love, I wasn't able to fully let go during sex. Even with him it took quite some time, and was hit or miss. The mental block I had was difficult to overcome.

I was also very overweight at the time. While I'm still overweight, more than 150 lbs lost also made a huge difference in how sex felt. This made orgasms much easier. The combination of being with someone I care about and having less physical issues means that neither my boyfriend nor myself can count the number of orgasms I have in any particular session.

I didn't worry about it when I didn't have them, simply enjoyed sex for what it was: something that felt pretty amazing. Now that I have them, it's like icing on the cake. So my suggestion is this: Yes, have yourself checked out physically to make sure you don't have any of the issues people have mentioned previously. But also, don't put yourself under pressure. I once had a friend ask how I could enjoy sex as much as I did when I couldn't have orgasms. I told him, "Sex is like ice cream. Yeah, a sundae with hot fudge and sprinkles and whipped cream is amazing, but are you going to refuse to eat ice cream if you don't have those things at home? No. Cuz ice cream is awesome."

I cum spontaneously and hands-free, but the experience is so different than what I have ever heard orgasms described as that I, too, mistakenly thought I was orgasmless until I was 20 (when I finally got a hitachi magic wand and what I was experiencing became a little more obvious).

When I got the vibrator, I found that I might start having those pee-muscle contractions as soon as 30 seconds into using it, but not in the cluster or with the same level of release that other people report during their orgasms.

So, say I use the vibrator for 20 minutes. I might very well have my first pee-muscle contractions (or the exterior ones, though I usually get more of those once the vibrator is off) pretty soon after starting and then have them pleasantly randomly fire throughout the 20 minute time frame without ever having a climaxing experience.

Further more, I have these things just when I'm laying around watching tv, or walking around at the grocery store. This has nothing to do with being turned on, at all, but while they do feel nice since there is no climax involved it's not disruptive.

Additionally, once I started experiencing this phenonmenon, I looked back and realized that I had been having hands-free orgasms since I was a young teenager. I'd fantasize myself to the point where I'd have these contractions, but since there was no big release or ecstacy I didn't realize that that was what they were.

So, I went from thinking I was 20 and orgasmless (despite a hell of a lot of trying for many years) to realizing I was having hands free orgasms and spontaneous orgasms, but that because they were so different from what I see depicted and hear described that I never recognized them.

As I've gotten older (I'm 36, now), sometimes there is a little more of a built charge that is released with the individual contractions, but they're still fairly spaced out.

I'm pretty happy with the situation. I certainly experience a great deal of sexual bliss. Because of the way I experience them, orgasms aren't really the focus for me but just something I enjoy along the way, but I can certainly stay sexually aroused for an extended period of time and really enjoy it. I mean, I really love sex. The orgasms feel good, but aren't the point and seem more incidental.

The only downside I have is when a partner gets really hung up on wanting me to cum in the traditional manner, but I really can't possibly be more explicit in describing the matter in advance. I'm not sure why this information is hard for some people to wrap their heads around, (I mean, I can accept things I've never heard of before and take them in stride) but it's the only draw back and it's minor.

So, in a nutshell, the writer might want to consider the possibility that she might already be cumming, but in a non-traditional way that maybe she doesn't recognize.

BTW, I have absolutely never heard anyone in my life describe what I have, here, so if anyone actually reads this long comment burried all the way down in the 170's and knows anything about it, I would very much appreciate a response. Please just address it to my comment # and I'll catch it.

FAP
I don't know whether you exercise (or what kind of exercise you do), but you may want to try the kind that uses your legs. What is ideal is deliberate strides that get the blood flowing through your groin area. I found out accidentally how much of a WOW difference exercise made. Since arousal carries fresh oxygen-rich blood to the genitals, what a wonderful way to get the process underway with exercise beforehand.

As for the byproduct argument, I find it rather ironic that women whose clits have (IIRC) on average 8,000 nerve endings are considered as genital byproducts of men whose penises have 2,000 nerve endings. 8K vs 2K? No contest!

Finally, why do orgasms exist? Because they don't merely make one feel good, they're GOOD for the entire body. So they promote good health through improvements to a wide variety of systems.

I wish-I wish-I wish in my heart of hearts that our sex-negative culture could be blasted out of existence and that self-pleasure would take its place. Imagine a society of mellow, sexually satisfied people. Well ... I'm trying, but....

Well, I got straight As at a leading private liberal art college. I freely admitted, however, that that was some time ago so please point me to the updated scientific data documenting the evolution of the animal kindgom--in which I learned that males arrived for additional genetic variation. Have evolutionary biologists since discovered that that is not the case, that females are not evolutionarily older? Evidence please.

Please also provide the updated scientific data about human embryo development because I learned that human develop alters course in the presence of testosterone. In its absence, the child is female. Hence, the phenomenon of genetically male but phenotypically female humans who do not make or respond to testosterone--those humans have orgasms too, do they not? Maybe I missed this day despite being at the top of my college class, but I never learned that clitoral development was an "off path" of male genital development. Again, if there's been an update here, provide it.

I have never in any of these posts disputed the obvious biological reality that a man must orgasm (save technological assists) to reproduce and that that isn't biologically true of women. I never argued that.

Nor did I make any claims about women's studies being more credible by default than evo psych. I didn't say shit about women's studies or feminism, in fact.

Again, paint me how ever you wish, say I'm not a good student, not at a good college, denying biological reality or am just a feminazi woman's studies ideologue (I'm anything but)-- to do so simplifies what i'm saying... considerably. There is a big difference between acknowledging the reality of evolution and the biological differences between sexes and extrapolating from that to deny all complexity in human behavior and culture. Again, to say that women's orgasm is "an unnecessary evolutionary byproduct, the lukewarm leftovers of male development" is quite an extrapolation, and it is IMPLICITLY political as a result, especially when offered as "science" in response to a women frustrated by her struggle to orgasm.

I can get very angry when I awake to see another child has committed suicide because they were gay and bullied. As a 52 year old straight man, with 4 children of my own who have given me 6 grand kids, these stories sadden me. I am a vocal proponent of equal rights for all and make many posts on Facebook on the subject. Just this morning I posted about military Chaplins being given the OK to preform same sex marriages. This decision coming on the heels of DADT being tossed out the door means to me no one really gives a shit if their comrade in arms is gay. They care if someone has their back. I am quite sure people think that I am at least bisexual because of my views. But to me there is no issue. What is right is right.

OK, upon further review Wifey and I may be passive. We have had both a man and a woman, once at the same time, go down on her as we fucked. And tongues do travel. An experience we both highly recommend! And the two of us agree if John Barrowman joined us in a threesome, who knows what would happen, LOL. The same with Demi Moore.

My Wife and I look at life like this. If you are lucky enough to fall in love and that person is in love with you, that is a good thing. It matters not if it is two men, two women or a man & a woman. Love is love and if you do not grab it when it comes around, you may not find it again.

In my opinion, and I am sure you have noticed the same, those that scream the loudest against same sex marriage are the ones that have inner turmoil over the subject. Either they want to fool around with someone of the same sex and fight the natural urge or they had an experience or two, or three that eventually freaked them out. They were taught it was wrong and fight those feelings to the degree of becoming homophobic. What a shitty way to go through life.

D in KY.

One sex can't possibly be evolutionarily older. If you don't have two sexes, you're not 'female' by default, you're 'asexual'. You have no sex. We call parthenotes 'female' now because it makes more sense in our binary system, but again: they're ASEXUAL. Males never 'arrived', sexual differentiation EVOLVED, and differently in different lineages. And sexual reproduction is NOT just for "genetic diversity". Asexuals have numerous methods for maintaining diversity despite lacking recombination. Sexual reproduction is still one of the great unanswered questions in evo bio, so anybody that tells you "sex evolved for X" is simply wrong. There are likely many factors, and each has different levels of importance based on the lineage.

The reason it's not strictly true that "default" is female in humans is because individuals that are XO are not stereotypically female (they are sterile, they don't menstruate, there is little to no breast development). In addition, de la Chapelle syndrome is the results of the SRY gene recombining into an XX chromosome (or both), leading to XX males.

It's. Not. Simple.

Also, maddy811, cracks about how smart you are and how awesome you did in your liberal arts college are not particularly helpful for any of your arguments.

I can get very angry when I awake to see another child has committed suicide because they were gay and bullied. As a 52 year old straight man, with 4 children of my own who have given me 6 grand kids, these stories sadden me. I am a vocal proponent of equal rights for all and make many posts on Facebook on the subject. Just this morning I posted about military Chaplins being given the OK to preform same sex marriages. This decision coming on the heels of DADT being tossed out the door means to me no one really gives a shit if their comrade in arms is gay. They care if someone has their back. I am quite sure people think that I am at least bisexual because of my views. But to me there is no issue. What is right is right.

OK, upon further review Wifey and I may be passive. We have had both a man and a woman, once at the same time, go down on her as we fucked. And tongues do travel. An experience we both highly recommend! And the two of us agree if John Barrowman joined us in a threesome, who knows what would happen, LOL. The same with Demi Moore.

My Wife and I look at life like this. If you are lucky enough to fall in love and that person is in love with you, that is a good thing. It matters not if it is two men, two women or a man & a woman. Love is love and if you do not grab it when it comes around, you may not find it again.

In my opinion, and I am sure you have noticed the same, those that scream the loudest against same sex marriage are the ones that have inner turmoil over the subject. Either they want to fool around with someone of the same sex and fight the natural urge or they had an experience or two, or three that eventually freaked them out. They were taught it was wrong and fight those feelings to the degree of becoming homophobic. What a shitty way to go through life.

sex-positive feminist (#143): Vibrators have been around since the Victorian era. Doctors used them on women to cure their "hysteria" (a mysterious womanly ailment that was probably just sexual frustration). Maybe Betty Dodson was the Bill Gates of the vibrator, making it smaller and user-friendly (instead of huge and steam-powered like those first ones), but she didn't invent it.

http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2010/02/the-st…

rex_everything (#145): Ejaculation isn't orgasm...I believe it's MORE difficult for men to have orgasms because we think ejaculation is the end-product

That makes SO MUCH SENSE. It explains why so many of my partners have described their orgasms (or just ejaculations, as the case may be) as a feeling of release, without mentioning anything about pleasure. When I come, yeah, it releases sexual tension and makes me feel relaxed afterward, but there's also this whole wave-after-wave-of-pleasure thing. Occasionally I'll have an orgasm that falls flat (this especially happened when I was on antidepressants) and I get the feeling of release without any of the other sensations - maybe that's what most guys experience all the time. It'd explain why so many guys can be almost silent when they come whereas I couldn't totally suppress my moans even if I wanted to...

Besides which, all male animals ejaculate when they mate, and yet I've read that only pigs and dolphins actually have orgasms. So maybe the real question is: if ejaculation and orgasm are two different things (and they are; ask anyone who practices tantric csex) why does anyone feel orgasmic pleasure during sex?

Oh, and to whoever wrote upthread that FAP's problem might be a lack of desire for her boyfriend: fucking right! People (and I would venture to say especially female people) are constantly bombarded with the message that looks aren't supposed to matter and we're supposed to love people for what's on the inside. This often results in us pairing up with an absolutely wonderful person who is not at all our physical type. Been there, done that, can tell you firsthand that sex with someone you actually desire is a completely different thing from sex with someone who just has a really great personality.

The saddest part is that people are attracted to all kinds of different things, so if we'd drop the bullshit and tell people to follow their crotch as well as their heart, most people would still find partners - and those partners would love how we look instead of trying to see past it. I was married for a decade to a big bearlike guy when what I really craved was a feminine girlyboy. My current boyfriend - a feminine girlyboy - had previous girlfriends who wanted manly-men but stayed with him because looks aren't supposed to matter. So much lackluster sex, all because we dreaded seeming shallow. :P

@179. I don't disagree with anything you said, and i think your opening paragraph describes the evolution of binary sexes beautifully, much better than my admittedly brief "genetic diverstity."

Thanks as well for the much more precise information about XO--Yes, I did know that androgen insensitivity leads to sterility, and, yes, I wholly agree with you that sexual development is not simple and that cases like that don't neatly fit into either male or female. But I'm not wrong about the fact that it's the addition of testosterone that alters development, and, again, i say that to point out that I need real developmental evidence to convince me that the clitoris is merely a "biproduct" of male development, because that doesn't make sense to me.

Nothing you said, however, addresses the larger political questions I was raising about the implications and presumptions of this byproduct theory and Dan's use of it for a women who doesn't orgasm.

As for me touting my smarts, I only did it because of the number of posts who resorted to ad hominem attacks instead of actually debating the points. Thank you for at least doing that.

#174: We read in books and see on tv and in movies these super amazing climaxes, and we tend to think that anything less is not an orgasm. Now, this may not be your problem, but you may want to reconsider what an orgasm is. There are people who have been having them for a long time, and didn't realize it because they didn't fly off the bed when it happened.

#175: I looked back and realized that I had been having hands-free orgasms since I was a young teenager. I'd fantasize myself to the point where I'd have these contractions, but since there was no big release or ecstacy I didn't realize that that was what they were.

So, I went from thinking I was 20 and orgasmless (despite a hell of a lot of trying for many years) to realizing I was having hands free orgasms and spontaneous orgasms, but that because they were so different from what I see depicted and hear described that I never recognized them.

This probably won't make me too popular with you guys, but I tend to believe in the old saying that if you don't know whether you've had an orgasm, it means that you haven't.

175: Orgasm is pretty much defined in terms of feelings of release and ecstasy. If you're happy with the vaginal contractions you've been having, that's awesome (not sarcasm; why try to conform to someone else's standard of pleasure if you're enjoying what you have just fine?) but if there's no pleasure and no release, there's no way I would classify them as orgasms. I get random vaginal contractions when I'm turned on, and sometimes (oddly) every now and then when I'm pissed off; sometimes the contractions come with a little twinge of pleasure, but they're still nothing like my orgasms.

I do agree that tv and movies can portray women's orgasms in an exaggerated way, and that it's good to kind of lower your standards and not expect coming to be the be-all and end-all. My first orgasms required a fair bit of work and didn't have too huge of a payoff (I didn't thrash and howl like a banshee from the extreme sensations or anything), but - and this is the important part - there was still no mistaking them.

It's not unlike a sneeze: y'know how sometimes you can feel a sneeze approaching? Would you ever mistake the "I'm about to sneeze" tickle in your sinuses for an actual sneeze? No. A sneeze is a very distinct phenomenon with a definite beginning and end. Sometimes you're "done" after one sneeze, and other times your sinuses still have that tickle and you know that more sneezes are imminent - or at least that you could make it happen again if you focused on it and made a conscious effort to bring it on. But I don't think anyone has ever said "Oh! I think I just sneezed but I'm not sure."

My first orgasms, back when I was ten or so, were short but intense little ripples of pleasure, accompanied by a feeling of release and followed by a feeling of relaxation. My current ones are far more intense, last longer, and if I keep on getting stimulation I'll have up to eight in a row (but usually more like two or three, after which I get too sensitive to continue). Then I get very, very giggly and very, very sleepy. But although the duration and intensity have changed over the years from *blipblipbloop!* "Yay, I'm not horny anymore!" to full-out porn-level convulsions, the basic sensations are exactly the same.

An orgasm is a distinct jolt of pleasure and/or feeling of release, originating from the genitals. If a person isn't experiencing this, but they still find sex fun and satisfying, then there's absolutely nothing wrong with that - why obsess on experiencing some particular sensation you don't even care about? But if we start applying the word "orgasm" to every little vaginal twitch or every time someone enjoys how penetration feels, the word loses all meaning. Just sayin'.

172: None of that is evidence for the byproduct theory. A trait doesn’t have to be a “necessity” for reproduction in order to be directly (not just vestigially) selected for. It only has to improve the success of reproduction. Keen hearing, for example, isn’t a necessity for reproduction, but it makes reproduction more likely to occur by making the individual more likely to survive long enough to reproduce. It’s meaningless to point out that selection for the male orgasm is “stronger.” That probably is the case. But it’s a logical leap to say that there is therefore no independent selection for the female orgasm; that this is entirely due to selection for the male orgasm. If males are more likely to reproduce with orgasms, orgasms will be selected for in males (and their offspring). However, the same is true of females. It all comes down to whether or not males are the only sex that is more likely to reproduce with orgasms vs. without orgasms. The mechanisms by which an orgasm can increase either sex’s reproduction might differ. Orgasms physically increase the likelihood of reproduction for men, and they may behaviorally increase the likelihood for reproduction in women. Behavior may not be as cut-and-dry a mechanism as physical mechanisms, but it’s still relevant.

Women are likely to initiate more sex if they find it more pleasurable. They are likely to have more sex if they initiate more sex. They are likely to reproduce more if they have more sex. This alone is a (potential) mechanism by which “orgasmability” can be directly selected for in females alongside males. It doesn’t become less significant if this selection is simultaneously occurring in males (even if it’s stronger for males).

I’m not saying that the male orgasm is NOT selected for, or that there is no such thing as a vestigial trait. I’m not even saying that the female orgasm is DEFINITELY not one of those vestigial traits: the prevalence of active sex-seeking in women is not direct evidence that female orgasms are directly selected for, but that’s not what I’m arguing.

I’m arguing that evidence for the byproduct theory is lacking, and that the sexual behavior of women is a part of the evidence against it. To believe the byproduct theory, it’s not enough to point out that female orgasms don’t cause more sperm to mix during an individual sex session. One would also have to propose a mechanism by which “orgasmability” became extremely common in females, in a context where women actively seek sex, without having any direct differential effects on how much sex they seek and have. The activeness of female sexuality makes it more difficult for this to happen, since it opens up the possibility for female reproduction to be differentially influenced by things that influence their sexual behavior (like the promise of more orgasms). One would have to argue that orgasms don’t influence pleasurability, OR that pleasure doesn’t motivate people to have more sex, OR by that women do not actively seek sex. One of those things would have to be false in order for the female orgasm to never independently increase reproduction for those that have the trait.

Although I also have to take fault with people (like 176) who think that women’s super-sensitive clits, or greater orgasms, count as proof against the byproduct theory. It doesn’t. It also does not matter which set of genitals is the “default,” and which develops later. It’s still plausible that male genitals would receive all the selective pressure to become orgasmic regardless of which genitals are the fetal “default” or which ones have the more powerful orgasms as a result.

If the byproduct theory were true, it would simply mean that “human genitals” (including female ones) became sensitive and orgasmic because this caused “male human genitals” to fertilize more easily, and that insemination by males was the only mechanism by which orgasmability mattered (reproductively). It would mean that orgasmic women exist because orgasmic men had more offspring (which would include orgasmic women). Nothing about that is refuted by pointing out that the resulting orgasmic women were WAY orgasmic, or that they didn’t require testosterone in order to remain female in the womb.

The theory just states that women’s orgasms have no direct influence on reproduction, and were not selected for on their own.

I should reiterate that I do not for a minute buy the “byproduct” theory, but I think it’s important to refute it with evidence that is compatible with evolutionary theory. And you’ll notice that in my arguments earlier (this post and 130), I don’t point to any physical trait and say, “this here; this could not have developed unless the female orgasm mattered.” My whole reason for doubting the byproduct theory is due to its own incompatibility with evolutionary theory and its own lack of convincing evidence. It has to do with the difficulty in believing that the female orgasm, however it arrived, could manage to remain irrelevant to reproduction occurrence in a species where males and females exhibit sex-seeking behavior, which is influenced by pleasure.

In any case, though, using phrasing like "lukewarm leftovers" is not exactly a gold standard of scientific objectivity, so you'd be hard-pressed to fault people for their accusations of sexism. It's a pretty valid red flag.

@69: "Read The Orgasm Diet by Marrena Lindberg.

Start taking high doses per her recommendation of FISH OIL, more than the bottle says - a tablespoon of the Carlson's Fish Oil for example"

http://www.badscience.net/category/fish-…

Or homeopathy, or acupuncture, or any other placebo.

Actual research hasn't matched any of the anecdotal claims for fish oil so far. It's healthy, but not a cure-all as is being sold, especially by fad dieters like Lindberg.

I remember an excellent Stephen Jay Gould essay on female orgasm that was less scholarly in tone than this one, but I can't find it online now. Meanwhile, this has all the essential points.

http://books.google.com/books?id=pzj90sl…

For all those arguing about evolutionary necessity, evolutionary psychology, and byproducts, do read this. It's really good. There's lots in here, but the important point for this discussion, I think, is that it doesn't matter what's a byproduct of what or why something evolved or if there's a reason for the evolution of a trait. What if (for wild argument) it were proved conclusively that female orgasm was weird or abnormal or non-adaptive or a byproduct of male orgasm? Would that make our advice to FAP any different? Of course not! I'd still be telling her to experiment with a glass of wine, a vibrator, and a man who's not putting pressure on her.

I'll keep looking for that other Stephen Jay Gould essay, the one that's more accessible. I'll post a pointer to it when I find it.

#187, your link goes to an article debunking the idea of fish oil making children smarter; nothing to do with orgasms. Perhaps you posted the wrong one?

I never understood the evolutionary argument that male organism is "necessary" to propagate the species while female organism is not. Look folks, there is no physiological reason why ejaculation "needs" to be pleasurable. (Other fluids come out of the male organ just fine without it.) The main benefit of orgasmic pleasure -- it seems to me -- is to encourage folks to have lots of sex. . . whether they are men or women. . . from an evolutionary perspective. Just sayin'.

@190: It's the nutritional fad of the day.

The reason why they don't respond directly to her claims is because the author has tenously linked "orgasmic potential" to the other debunked benefits.

And also, they are medical professionals and responding to the addle-brains in science-"reporting" who don't understand how studies work and should be interpreted (not to mention the supplement-industry propaganda), and not bothering to go after every single author with a quack idea, no solid research, and a mess of untested anecdotes.

@ 1... This is totally the place! This is where IGBP began! Haven't you been paying attention? This is a sex and relationship advice column, it's aim is to help people better enjoy sex and relationships. If you're being made to feel like an outcast and a freak it's very difficult to enjoy anything, even aspects of day to day life, let alone enjoying sex and relationships. Dan is standing up and saying "No More!" and obviously his column is the natural place to do that. I aplaude Dan for keeping us, his loyal readers and followers, up to date on his efforts and for encouraging everyone to do something to make it better NOW instead of just letting bullied teens wait alone until it gets better sometime later on.

I'm having trouble with my own link. In 189, I'm recommending an essay in Stephen Jay Gould's _Bully For Brontosaurus_ Male Nipples and Clitoral Ripples_, chapter 8. Google for it if my link doesn't help. It's worth reading.

My heart bleeds for Jamey, but his actions put the lie to his assertion that things get better. I think that he began to see that the politically correct lie he told was not going to manifest itself for him, and the necessity of having to pretend otherwise must have crushed the life in him. I've been where he was, and it really doesn't get better.

@ Maddy811:

I admit to being snarky and tactless and generally a jerk, so please accept my apologies for my earlier comment to you. Just to clarify, I'm not calling you a feminazi ideologue, or a poor student, or saying that you went to an inferior college, or anything of that sort. I'm just saying that statements like “all human beings start out as female” and “females are evolutionarily older, and males arrived for additional genetic variation” are kinda sorta totally wrong.

As Doublehelix already pointed out, prior to the evolution of sexual reproduction, all organisms were asexual; males and females coevolved (often in weird and scary ways; just take a look at bedbugs, or Argentine lake ducks).

Regardless of chromosomal sex, all human embryos start out with a genital tubercule, bipotential gonads, Mullerian ducts, and a Wolffian duct. Typically, in XY humans the SRY gene (found on the Y chromosome) sets off a developmental cascade. SRY upregulates the expression of SOX9, which in turn upregulates the expression of FGF9; these latter two genes induce cellular differentiation in the bipotential gonad, producing Sertoli cells and then, slightly later, Leydig cells. The former produce anti-Mullerian hormone; the latter produce androgens (including, but not limited to, testosterone). Broadly speaking, anti-Mullerian hormone “defeminizes” the embryo, suppressing the development of the Mullerian ducts; androgens, on the other hand, “masculinize” it, triggering the development of the Wolffian duct into the vas deferens, epididymis, and seminal vesicles, and the development of the genital tubercule into a penis. (In an endocrinologically typical XX embryo, the genital tubercule will become the clitoris.)

It was long believed that the “default” or “passive” developmental pathway was female. In the 1950s, an endocrinologist by the name of Alfred Jost removed the undeveloped gonads from male rabbit embryos (somehow managing not to kill them in the process) and saw observed that these genetically male rabbits were born phenotypically female. In light of this, he concluded that “the testes are the body sex differentiators; they impose masculinity on the whole genital sphere, which would become feminine in their absence. The presence or absence of ovaries is of no significance.” At first glance, Jost's statement appears to accord with known medical phenomena. If, for whatever reason, an XY embryo is totally deprived of (or totally insensitive to) androgens in utero, it will be born phenotypically female . . . sort of. Individuals with complete androgen insensitivity syndrome still have testes (although these are internal and do not produce sperm), and they don't have ovaries, uteri, or fallopian tubes. Their vaginas are typically significantly shallower than those of XX women, and they tend to have smaller than average clitorises. (The opposite effect is seen in XY women with partial androgen insensitivity syndrome, who tend to have larger-than-average clitorises; taken together, these facts suggest that androgens play a role in typical XX clitoral development.)

There are all sorts of other mutations and chromosomal syndromes that can cause a host of intersex conditions, and have a host of fascinating implications regarding human development, but I won't get into that right now. (I will, however, mention that androgen insensitivity syndrome, which I mentioned above, is totally separate from XO syndrome, aka Turner syndrome, which Doublehelix mentioned. Forgive me if I misunderstood you, but your comment @183 suggests that you think the two conditions are related, which they aren't.) I'll just say that, in spite of Jost's rabbits and persons with CAIS, emerging evidence demonstrates that female development doesn't naturally occur in the absence of testosterone, irrespective of genotype. Research into the genetic mechanisms underlying sex differentiation is still very much a work in progress, but it's increasingly clear that female development hinges on a genetic trigger akin to SRY – probably RSPO1 – and involves a number of genes with female-specific activation, including FOXL2 and WNT4, which suppress the male developmental pathway just as AMH suppresses the female developmental pathway. If these genes are not activated, it's possible to end up with an XX male. (This is a different kind of XX sex reversal than de la Chapelle syndrome, which Doublehelix mentioned @179.)

So, basically:

- All humans start out with proto-genitals that could go either way, depending on the genetic trigger; there are genetic triggers for both the male and the female pathways
- Sexual differentiation begins with the expression of genes, not than the production (or introduction) of hormones
- Male and female developmental pathways are mutually antagonistic, and neither one is “passive” or “default”
- Hormonal underexposure/overexposure/insensitivity in utero can produce ambiguous external genitalia, or even external genitalia indistinguishable from those of the opposite chromosomal sex; however, it cannot produce a fully functional reproductive system characteristic of the opposite chromosomal sex.

@ 172:

To repeat a question from my previous comment, do you seriously think that female orgasm would be anywhere near as strongly selected for as male orgasm? I'm not denying that female orgasm may be an adaptive trait that increases reproductive fitness, and hence has been actively selected for (although, to repeat myself again, there's precious little evidence of that). However, it clearly hasn't been selected for to the degree that male orgasm has.

Yes, traits that give organisms even a slight competitive edge will still be actively selected for. But although there's a lot of plausible-sounding speculation about ways in which female orgasm would result in increased reproductive success, none of it seems to hold up to close examination. As of now, there's simply no good evidence that female orgasm physiologically increases the chances of conception. When it comes to behavior, I admit that's it very difficult to quantify what impact, if any, female orgasmic capacity might have on reproductive success. However, as I think I've said three or four times now, statistics show that, on aggregate, orgasmic women don't have (or want) more sex than their anorgasmic counterparts.

So, basically, the byproduct hypothesis is the null hypothesis: because there's no compelling evidence that female orgasm was actively selected for, we provisionally assume that it wasn't selected for. Evolutionary non-selection for female orgasm would certainly go a long way toward explaining the high incidence of anorgasmia/hypo-orgasmia in women. It would also explain the fact that even for orgasmic women, intercourse alone is seldom enough to produce orgasm; women most reliably achieve orgasm when their clitorises are rubbed/sucked/otherwise subjected to the same stimulation that brings a penis to orgasm. I admit that this proposition can be phrased in some potentially offensive ways – it can be made to resemble a dismissal of female sexuality, or a reaffirmation of phallocentrism. No woman wants to be told, “Hey, the only reason you can come is because your clit is a coulda-been dick! And if it were a real dick, you'd have a much easier time getting off! Your orgasm is just lukewarm leftovers, baby.” But – Tracy Clark Flory's massively unfortunate phrasing notwithstanding – the byproduct hypothesis doesn't necessitate that kind of value judgment. The evolutionary origins of female orgasm in no way reflect on its social value.

199: There isn't any more direct evidence that the male orgasm is selected for than there is for the female orgasm. The byproduct hypothesis is not the null hypothesis here.

The null hypothesis would be that neither is selected for. The byproduct hypothesis asserts not only that the male orgasm is selected for, but that the female orgasm is vestigial to the male orgasm. These are both positive assertions. Neither one has any more hard evidence than the assertion that female orgasms are selected for as well.

Can you cite the statistics showing that orgasmic women don't seek more sex than their anorgasmic counterparts? I'm curious to see if they managed to account for anorgasmic women who are not hoping for orgasms, as well as cultural expectations to pursue sex that may or may not have been around for the greater part of humanity's development. Did they conflate "pursuing relationships" with "pursuing sex?" Did they quantify the number of sex sessions (not just sex partners) and compare? Did they differentiate between sexual relationships and companionship?

As you said, the effects of behavior are harder to quantify than the effects of physiological mechanisms. That doesn't mean they're insignificant, though.

I also will reiterate again that I'm not claiming to have evidence that the female orgasm was definitely selected for directly. I'm claiming that the two positive assertions in the byproduct theory are no more definite.

I do agree that the byproduct hypothesis doesn't necessitate value judgement, since the cultural/personal reasons to "value" an orgasm have nothing to do with its genetic basis. My stance against sexism has nothing to do with my disbelief in the byproduct theory: if it's true, then it's true, and women should seek pleasure nonetheless.

My disbelief is due to the theory's failure to offer enough evidence for its assertions (it's a "maybe-things-happened-this-way" theory), and in the mean time, the behavioral aspects of women's sexuality are not as passive as the byproduct theory implies.

To FAP: I have been right where you are. You *are* normal. I didn't have my first orgasm until I was 33, after I had been sexually active for 15 years and married for 10 of them. For me, it completely IS all in the mind. I found a book title "For Yourself" (I think that is the title!) written for "pre-orgasmic" women that was very helpful. But what was more helpful was finding a lover who didn't care if I came or not thus removing a lot of the pressure I felt. Even more helpful: he bought himself a copy of the book and was so enthusiastic about doing some of the things recommended that it became fun for us, with no required destination. Then one day a couple of months after we started, pow! And let me tell you, when I had my first orgasm it was like a sky rocket! My lover said I almost crushed his head (yes, he was going down on me, which he loved to do, while I was reading soft porn!). Don't give up hope, do some research and stop trying so hard. I still don't come easy by someone else's manipulations (protective brain barriers) but I come any time I want, as quickly as I want, with a Hitachi wand. Buy one!!!

Echizen:

Why do you call Baumeister's address and Palmer and Thornhill's "A Natural History of Rape" sexist bullshit? The only criticisms of Palmer and Thornhill I've seen all seem to confuse stating something is adaptive with approving of it. It's likely rape evolved as an adaptive behavior: that seems to offend people, but it doesn't mean the science is bullshit. Same goes with Baumeister's statistics about men being more on the extremes.

Most of the criticism of ev psych I've seen is politically based -- in other words "I don't like this idea" -- rather than actually looking at the facts.

@200 / Bonefish:

The stats are in Lloyd's book. The null hypothesis for anything is that it's not adaptive, but there's strong evidence that the male orgasm is adaptive: specifically, that it's near universal in men.

I don't think anyone is saying female sexuality is all passive. It's hard to understand why orgasm isn't linked to sex or reproduction rates. I'm not sure if we have a good theory behind it. But that's what the statistics show.

Dear FAP
As a newly menopausal woman, I can commiserate. My orgasms are barely there anymore. I'm having to learn new pathways to get aroused and the finish is very variable, often faint. Consider having your hormones checked?

There is one thing that is almost miraculous in its effect...and that is marijuana. Just a tiny hit will do ya. And I don't think it's simply the relaxation part of it. I really think it's working on the hormones. It improves the situation for me immensely.

I do agree with all the other advice that focuses on the idea of taking the pressure off yourself however you can. And surround yourself with images and sounds that arouse you.

Finally: Remove any time limit.
I've realized that any dissatisfaction I've had with my own sexual experience has had a lot to do with following the male pattern to arousal and finishing. (fast and fast) Many women have the capacity, once fully aroused, to go and go (and not necessarily finish). Having any pressure to get it all done in the time it takes a man can have a big effect on arousal and ability to "get there" (wherever there is for you).

Dear FAP
As a newly menopausal woman, I can commiserate. My orgasms are barely there anymore. I'm having to learn new pathways to get aroused and the finish is very variable, often faint. Consider having your hormones checked?

There is one thing that is almost miraculous in its effect...and that is marijuana. Just a tiny hit will do ya. And I don't think it's simply the relaxation part of it. I really think it's working on the hormones. It improves the situation for me immensely.

I do agree with all the other advice that focuses on the idea of taking the pressure off yourself however you can. And surround yourself with images and sounds that arouse you.

Finally: Remove any time limit.
I've realized that any dissatisfaction I've had with my own sexual experience has had a lot to do with following the male pattern to arousal and finishing. (fast and fast) Many women have the capacity, once fully aroused, to go and go (and not necessarily finish). Having any pressure to get it all done in the time it takes a man can have a big effect on arousal and ability to "get there" (wherever there is for you).

Dan's answer to FAP is a non-sequitor. She states 2 problems:
1. She's not having orgasms.
2. She wonders if there's something wrong with her.

Dan ignores the first which makes a little sense since women's sexual response isn't exactly his thing and goes off on a tangent for the second. I'm glad others have filled in the blanks with suggestions for what helped them come (I had no idea marijuana was so popular; for me it was wine).

I'm disappointed with the scientific talk when I usually enjoy it (though I get frustrated with the attempts to boil down complex scientific concepts to the format of a comments section).

Dan says that she may be "relieved to know" and then gives a bunch of irrelevant information that doesn't strike me as comforting to anyone. I'd say his information is correct, but that doesn't stop it from having nothing to do with what's bothering FAP. She needs to know that there's nothing wrong with her if she doesn't come or doesn't come yet. She needs to know that it doesn't matter if she comes in an unusual way with unusual stimulation or with unusual fantasies or with a vibrator or without.

Then we've got the comments which go off on Dan's tangent. Like I said, I usually enjoy discussion of evolutionary biology and evolutionary psychology, but this one has bothered me because I keep imagining FAP in the background feeling more confused and alone than ever.