I am a 23-year-old female, sexually active for seven years, and I canât reach climax. I am extremely frustrated. I have a wonderfully patient and helpful partner. He has tried hard to no avail. I canât even get myself there. I feel like I am broken. My partner and I talk out anything that is bothering me, we try different things, but no matter what the situation, I can never reach orgasm. When I went off birth control, I brought up to my doctor that I had never had an orgasm, and she told me that female orgasms are largely a mental thing. She suggested I try using fantasy, which was not new to me. Other than this, my partner and I have a healthy sex life. I donât know what to do from here. I start to wonder if there is something wrong with me.
Frustrated Annoyed...
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I am a 23-year-old female, sexually active for seven years, and I canât reach climax. I am extremely frustrated. I have a wonderfully patient and helpful partner. He has tried hard to no avail. I canât even get myself there. I feel like I am broken. My partner and I talk out anything that is bothering me, we try different things, but no matter what the situation, I can never reach orgasm. When I went off birth control, I brought up to my doctor that I had never had an orgasm, and she told me that female orgasms are largely a mental thing. She suggested I try using fantasy, which was not new to me. Other than this, my partner and I have a healthy sex life. I donât know what to do from here. I start to wonder if there is something wrong with me.
Frustrated Annoyed Person
âFAP certainly shouldnât feel bad that she doesnât have a handle on a phenomenon that even sex researchers donât properly understand,â said Tracy Clark-Flory, who writes informed, fascinating, and sometimes hilarious pieces about sex, dating, and relationships for Salon.com. âIn fact, she might be relieved to learn that scientists of all stripes have been struggling for decades to determine why the female orgasm even exists in the first place.â
You might also be relieved to learn about one theory thatâs making the rounds, FAP, or⊠you might not.
âItâs called the âbyproductâ theory,â says Clark-Flory, âand it might help make FAP feel less broken.â
Here comes da science:
âEvolutionary selection has hugely favored the male orgasm, for obvious reasons,â explains Clark-Flory, the most obvious being that males who canât come arenât going to have many descendants. âThe 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-downâor, more cynically, lukewarm leftovers.â
In other wordsâŠ
Every little zygote, so beloved by the GOP base, has all the basic parts needed to build either a male or a female baby who, once born, the GOP base could not care less about. Blasts of hormones transform those pleasure-friendly nerves and tissuesânerves and tissues beloved by the GOP base so long as they remain in the uterusâinto either boy junk or girl junk. Backers of the byproduct theory believe that women are capable of having orgasms not because women need to have orgasms, but because female junk is built from the same component parts as male junk. Women can have orgasms because men must.
âAt first, I found this theory terribly off-putting,â says Clark-Flory, âbut I would encourage FAP to think about it differently, as I eventually did.â
Viewing the female orgasm as an âevolutionary freebie,â Clark-Flory continues, âcan actually validate the vast range of womenâs orgasmic experiences, as Elisabeth Lloyd, author of The Case of the Female Orgasm, has argued. This means a multiorgasmic woman is just as ânormalâ as an orgasmless one, a lady who comes from a single flick of the finger is just as âhealthyâ as one who requires 45 minutes with her Hitachi Magic Wand set on high.â
So youâre not âbroken,â FAP, even if youâre not orgasmic.
Clark-Flory doesnât think you should give up all hopes of ever experiencing an orgasmânor do I!âbut she thinks you should stop trying so hard and stressing so much.
âWhen women have a difficult time getting there, it can be helpful to take the finish line away,â says Clark-Flory. âAt the risk of sounding woo-woo, I would suggest that she slow down and focus on feeling individual sensations. Sheâll be most likely to come when she forgets her worries about all that she isnât feeling and simply enjoys what she does feel.â
CONFIDENTIAL TO EVERYONE: Jamey Rodemeyerâa 14-year-old kid growing up in Buffalo, New Yorkâloved Lady Gaga, most of his friends were girls, and he had feminine mannerisms. And for that, he was subjected to daily and often brutal bullying since he was in the fifth grade.
Last week, Jamey took his own life.
âAll the girls just loved him and they always defended him,â Jameyâs mother told CBS News. âBut all the boys would say, âGeez, youâre such a girl. Why are you hanging out with all those girls? What are you, a girl? Oh, you must be gay.ââ
For those sinsâthe sin of hanging out with girls, the sin of loving Lady Gaga, the sin of not being exactly like all the other boysâJamey had to endure taunts like this one: âI wouldnât care if you died. No one would. So just do it :) It would make everyone WAY more happier!â
âThe bullies are still walking around,â Jameyâs grieving mother told CBS. âThey get to wake up tomorrow and go to school and see all their friends, but my son will not be given a second chance.â
Then thereâs this detail from the Buffalo News:
âLast September, the It Gets Better Project was launched online as a place for adults [to] reassure troubled and potentially suicidal lesbian, gay, and bisexual youth that despite the taunting, bullying, and physical abuse they face as adolescents and teens, life improves after high school. In May of 2011, Jamey posted [a] YouTube video with the description âJamey From Buffalo, New York telling you, IT GETS BETTER!ââ
The It Gets Better Project was created to give bullied and despairing LGBT kids hope for their future. But sometimes hope isnât enough. Sometimes the damage done by hate and haters is simply too great. Sometimes the future seems too remote. And those are the times that we all feel despair.
Watching Jameyâs It Gets Better video in the wake of his suicide is indescribably heartbreaking. We know now that Jamey was in pain when he made his video. But he was reaching out and trying to help other kids who were suffering.
We can best honor his memory by following his example.
As Iâve said since launching the It Gets Better Project in this space a year ago, nothing about participating in the IGBP excuses or precludes usâthe adults among usâfrom doing more. The videos have helped and continue to help; weâve heard from thousands of kids and their parents over the last 12 months. Countless LGBT kids have told us that the IGBP provided them with the hope, moral support, insight, and practical referrals to services that they needed to persevere. But we can do more. We can press for the passage of the Student Non-Discrimination Act, we can fight to get anti-bullying programs that address anti-LGBT bullying into the schools, we can support GLSEN and its efforts to get GSAs into every public middle and high school, we can support the Trevor Project and the crucial work it does.
And we canâwe mustâconfront the bigots who are making it worse for kids like Jamey. Whether the bigots are stalking the halls of our schools, running their mouths on cable news, or running for presidentâthe bigots must be confronted and held accountable for the lives theyâre destroying.
ABC News reported there may be some accountability in Jameyâs case: âThe Amherst Police Departmentâs Special Victims Unit has said it will determine whether to charge some students with harassment, cyber-harassment, or hate crimes. Police said three students in particular might have been involved.â
Harassment and cyber-harassment donât become crimes only after the target commits suicide. Theyâre crimes, period, and they should be investigated and prosecuted before a grieving family has to bury a child, not after.
Jameyâs parents have asked that donations be made in his memory to Crisis Services (www.crisisservices.org). Please donate. And then find something else you can do and go do it.
Then do more.
Find the Savage Lovecast (my weekly podcast) every Tuesday at thestranger.com/savage.