Demystifying the Female Orgasm

The female orgasm continues to be a mystery to many men. Despite a greater openness on discussions of sexuality and sexual topics in modern times, the psychological and physiological process of a woman’s sexual climax is still seen inscrutable and beyond the pale of the regular guy. Here are some facts to shed more light on the process and demystify the female orgasm.

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It’s all up there.

Many experts believe that the most crucial organ for a female orgasm is actually the brain. This is because sexual stimulation in women is influenced to a great deal by what goes on in their minds. Men are more of visual creatures and find it easy to be turned on by pictures or the actual sight of sexually attractive women. The process of female sexual stimulation on the other hand is intrinsically related to the imagination and the experience of other senses like touch and smell. This is perhaps why women so often close their eyes when deeply stimulated or get turned on by reading or listening to sexually explicit language.  Psychiatrist Helen Singer Kaplan of the Human Sexuality Program at Weill Medical College of Cornell University added yet another critical element to the cycle of sexual arousal in women —desire. Based on her experience as a sex therapist Kaplan pointed out importance of mind in sexual experience since desire is mainly psychological. In fact investigating the culmination of female desire, Barry Komisaruk, a neuroscientist at Rutgers University and Beverly Whipple, a sexologist at the same institution proved that some women subjects could even think themselves to a climax, as measured by heart-rate, pupil dilation, perspiration and pain threshold. While the majority of women may not be able to achieve such a feat, there is little doubt on the importance of brain and neurological process in leading up to female orgasm.
 

Sexual fantasies

Sexual fantasies are a significant part of adult sexual behavior. Here again, a woman’s secret imaginations have always fretted their male partners. What does your girl really think about when having sex with you – is she fantasizing about someone else or is focused onto you despite her half-closed eyes? According to experts, men and women fantasize differently. Female sexual fantasies are more exploratory in their actions, trying out hitherto unimagined postures and situations or exploring bizarre sexual contexts in their imaginations. On the other hand, men usually fantasize more about having engaging in group-sex or sex with multiple partners. This difference elaborated by American researcher Glenn Wilson and reported in his book, The Great Sex Divide (Peter Owen, London, 1989 & Scott-Townsend, Washington D.C, 1992) has important implications in each gender’s sex life. In case of women, their exploratory sexual fantasies have more opportunity of correlation in actual life and an active sex life in turn further liberates or awakens their sexual fantasies. It is like a self-perpetuating cycle which leads to a thriving sex life, both psychologically as well physiologically. Those men however who fantasize more about group sex or sex with multiple partners have fewer opportunities of making them true in real life and hence may be more prone to dissatisfactions in their day-to-day sex life. The point of these comparisons is that men find it difficult to understand the co-relation of sexual fantasy and its actual experience in women and its role in female sexual orgasm because the function and influence of the co-relation in many essential ways differs from their own. 
 

The actual thing.

So much for what goes on in the inscrutable female mind. But what about the actual physiological process of the female orgasm?  A woman’s body starts getting ready for orgasm as soon as it is sexually aroused. External signs of sexual arousal in a woman may range from heavy breathing, hardened nipples, a flushed appearance especially on the face, neck and breasts as well as a tendency to arch her back slightly. If you are in an intimate position with a woman, you will also be able to recognize more private signs of female sexual arousal like the parting of her legs and a greater lubrication of the vaginal walls which is the female body’s way of preparing for sexual intercourse. The vagina itself will seem much larger as blood rushes to the region upon sexual arousal. The clitoris, a button-like feature, will harden due to the engorgement and perhaps throb and be much more accessible. Interestingly however, just before an orgasm, the clitoris shrinks a little bit and may even become too sensitive to give pleasure. The vaginal secretions turn from a clear fluid to being slightly whitish in color. All these mean that a woman is on the edge of a climax if stimulation to the area continues. When an orgasm begins, the interior walls of the vagina experience strong contractions, each lasting for a few seconds with roughly a ten-second interval between consecutive contractions. Some are stronger than others and in fact orgasmic contractions in women have been known to extend to the uterus and anus as well. During this time, the skin on her body will be flushed and she may pant or moan as her breathing becomes even shallower. The interval between the contractions may lessen to the point where they seem to come, one right after another. At the height of the orgasm, her muscles may contract as well and for an instant, her body may seem to go rigid. This will be immediately followed by an intense sense of release and some women may ejaculate as well. It is not unheard for women to cry during or after an orgasm, to their male partners perhaps yet another sign of the inscrutability of the whole process.

The female orgasm looms large in the male psyche. One significant fact perhaps responsible for the mystification of the process is that it is largely unnecessary from the evolutionary point of view. Women do not need to climax sexually in order to get pregnant. Men on the other hand need to ejaculate if their genes are to be carried onto the next generation. The female sexual orgasm is then purely about pleasure and perhaps why it has been so vastly discussed but little understood.