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Orgasm depends on a positive response to eroticism

Orgasm depends on a positive response to eroticism

You cannot teach someone to orgasm. We discover orgasm because we have the capability. Responsiveness relies on a person’s ability to identify with erotic scenarios. First, an aspect of sexual activity excites our curiosity. Second, we enjoy the possibilities we explore mentally. Third, our positive mental response causes us to stimulate our genitals instinctively.

It is almost a matter of chance or simple curiosity that a responsive woman discovers orgasm. Orgasm relies on a positive response to eroticism. Unless she has a special interest in erotica and an unusual curiosity to explore her sexual responses, there is no reason for a woman to discover orgasm. A woman needs to be able to tune into adult (erotic) psychology to consciously generate the equivalent mental arousal a man needs for orgasm.

Responding positively to eroticism means we enjoy the pleasurable feelings when we are aroused by it. Anyone who lacks a response to erotic stimuli is unable to appreciate the mental turn-on of sex. They naturally question the purpose of sexual activity and often seek a moral justification for sex. Women identify more readily with the negative aspects of sex: anti-social promiscuity, sexual disease, exploitative prostitution, degrading pornography, the world trade in sex slaves etc. Thinking of orgasm as an emotional or spiritual experience acts as a kind of moral compensation.

Unless you are a true masochist, sadistic activities are not turn-ons in reality. The turn-on is the concept of inflicting pain on (having control over) another person. In fantasy, a woman can simultaneously imagine herself as both giver and receiver. So women can fantasise about sadistic activities that are not likely to be pleasurable in real life. Many women decide that such disturbing thoughts are either immoral or unhealthy. If a woman discovers the sensations of sexual release that come with orgasm, she is more likely to explore her body and her fantasies regardless of her misgivings.

It is unlikely that a woman would be responsive if she is totally disgusted by the concept of sexual activity, including explicit genital stimulation. Many women (30% of Kinsey’s sample or about 1,800 women) openly acknowledged that they were never or rarely aroused by eroticism. A person who does not enjoy eroticism [i] is not consciously choosing to be inhibited. It’s just the way they are and most likely they are happy to be that way. They simply don’t have the benefit of enjoying the pleasure that comes from responding positively to eroticism. Nor is there any reason why sexual activity should always include orgasm to be enjoyable or valid.

[i] Some 95 per cent of the females … had … read stories that were deliberately intended to bring erotic response, but only 14 per cent recalled that they had ever been aroused by such stories. (Alfred Kinsey)

Excerpt from Women’s Sexual Behaviours & Responses (ISBN 978-0956-894717)