An admission: I grew up with a mother who would randomly shout self-pleasure slogans the way other mums would bang on about the importance of “slip, slop, slap”.
“Masturbation is essential!” “Learn pleasure, then teach!” And my favourite: “Reciprocation is everything!” Once I grew old enough to engage her, the context was clear: how can you expect to communicate what you like in bed if you don’t truly know yourself?
Teenage Dilvin was mortified, but 47-year-old Dilvin is mostly sad that every other Australian woman didn’t receive the same education.
Because if the statistics are anything to go by, we’re living through what researchers now call the pleasure gap: the stark disparity between how often heterosexual men and women reach orgasm during sex. The numbers are not subtle: in a Chapman University study of more than 50,000 people, 95 per cent of heterosexual men reported usually or always reaching orgasm during sex, compared with just 65 per cent of heterosexual women.
Meanwhile, a Monash University-led study reported that almost 50 per cent of middle-aged women had poor sexual wellbeing; in early perimenopausal women, that included a doubling of the likelihood of dysfunction in desire and arousal. In other words, when it comes to sexual satisfaction, women are statistically being left behind.
Pleasure, Where Art Thou?
Watch any movie or TV show and you’d be forgiven for thinking female orgasms arrive within seconds of penetration. We will, according to the words of the late author Henry Miller, come again and again, “like an accordion collapsing in a bag of milk”. Real life, however, is rarely quite so … cinematic.
“Are you kidding me?” My fifty-something friend spat at me recently when I politely asked if she’d been getting off lately. (Yes, having writer friends can be creepy.) “Trying to reach orgasm just feels like one more job on my already long list of jobs. You know what I really want at the end of the day? Ten minutes to read my book in fucking peace without someone touching or talking to me.”
We could conclude that women just aren’t as interested in sex, but two minutes with Anna Grosman, founder of Her Confidant escort agency and staunch advocate for women’s sensual empowerment, blows that theory out of the water. “That’s such nonsense. While the majority of my clients are women in their forties, fifties and sixties – many of them married – I’ve got quite a few in their seventies who are enjoying the best sex of their lives,” she says with a laugh. “What’s more, the companions tell me that these women are more open, enthusiastic and orgasmic than our younger customers.”
Christine Rafe, Lovehoney’s sex and relationship expert, is quick to agree that women are not inherently less sexual than men. “Actually, we know that over 90 per cent of women reliably orgasm during masturbation,” she explains. “That’s only 4 per cent less than men, which tells us something very important: the problem isn’t biological.” The issue clearly lies elsewhere.
The Pleasure Reality Check
Forget baby fog, nothing can prepare a woman for the wilderness of pushing 50. Caught between a rock and a hard place (more commonly known as looking after both children and ageing parents), women of my generation are often balancing family responsibilities with demanding careers in an economy where the cost of living rises faster than our salaries.
There’s little doubt we continue to do the lion’s share of housework (2023 UN data reveals Australia and New Zealand is the third highest region for unpaid domestic and care work done by women).
And the mental load? I can’t even begin to touch on the constant weight of scheduling medical appointments, buying classmate gifts, calling Aged Care (again) and anticipating everyone’s needs before they even arise. No wonder the idea of prioritising pleasure can feel less like indulgence and more like an impossible luxury. “Modern women often live in a constant state of sympathetic dominance,” Rafe explains, referring to the body’s fight-or-flight response.
“Our nervous system is essentially telling us we’re in survival mode and that we shouldn’t want sex – obviously we wouldn’t want to be horny while trying to escape a tiger.” Add perimenopause and menopause into the mix and things can become even more complicated.
Declining oestrogen levels can lead to vaginal dryness and/or atrophy, decreased blood flow to the clitoris and painful sex. Desire may dip, sensitivity may change and suddenly the vibrator that once worked wonders now needs to be cranked to 11. But even these physical shifts don’t fully explain the pleasure gap. Because when you start asking deeper questions about how we’ve been taught to think about sex and pleasure, a much bigger issue emerges.
The Education Gap
It was only recently that a male friend insisted that finding the G-spot (and presumably knowing what to do with it) is like “searching for the lost city of Atlantis with an iPhone torch”. A joke, yes, but the comment revealed something deeper: a common belief that women’s bodies are inherently mysterious, confusing and hard to please. “From an early age, we’re told that women’s bodies are complicated and our orgasms are elusive,” confirms Rafe.
“At the same time, we’re taught a penis-centric view of sex, where all activity should culminate in penetration.” The problem with that narrative? Not only do fewer than 20 per cent of women reliably orgasm through penetration alone, less than 2 per cent rely solely on penetration while pleasuring themselves.
This means that the way heterosexual sex is often framed prioritises the form of stimulation that benefits men the most while women are left chasing pleasure in a format that simply doesn’t work for their bodies.
Grosman adds that archaic belief systems and a tradition of slut shaming – particularly aimed at women aged 40-plus who dare to want to be seen as desirable – also have a lot to answer for.
“Many of my clients are high-powered, high-functioning women who’ve endured decades of terrible sex with their husbands because they’ve believed that the kind of sex they’ve been having is what sex must be like for every woman, that to endure is all part of the marriage contract,” she says, adding that this issue is particularly prevalent among those who married the first man they ever slept with.
“They didn’t realise they had a say in what they’d like sexually and now they’re calling me up to say, ‘I don’t know what I want or what I like, but I want to start exploring.’” Better late than never.
Rewiring For Pleasure
If it all sounds bleak, the good news is that the pleasure gap is not inevitable. In fact, solutions are often straightforward, and leaning into pleasure can also bring a world of health benefits. We know, for example, that research has found that orgasm may boost immune function by up to 30 per cent and that the release of endorphins during orgasm can reduce pain.
Other studies have linked sexual satisfaction with improved sleep, lower stress and better cardiovascular health. But for Grosman the most profound shift she witnesses in women who rediscover pleasure is psychological.
“They suddenly feel sexy and cheeky,” she says. “All the important stuff automatically rises to the surface when you allow a woman to just be herself and have fun.” For women who are navigating perimenopause or menopause, practical solutions – such as oestrogen suppositories, hormone therapy, pelvic floor exercises and plenty of lubricant – can assist, as can the use of powerful clitorial stimulation toys.
In fact, a recent study for Womanizer, part of the Lovehoney Group, found that masturbation with the use of sex toys reduced menopause symptoms by up to 36 per cent (interestingly, 91 per cent of women said they would be more likely to masturbate if they knew it would positively impact menopause symptoms).
But perhaps the most powerful change comes from shifting how we think about pleasure itself. “Women stuck in our burnout culture have this constant feeling of being responsible for other people and that we don’t ever believe self-pleasure can or should be prioritised,” Grosman says.
Her advice? Start by asking yourself what brings you joy outside of sex. Maybe it’s walking in the sunshine, eating your favourite ice cream or, yes, sitting down with a book for 10 glorious, uninterrupted minutes.
“Once we practise experiencing pleasure in everyday life, it becomes easier to ask ourselves what we want sexually.” Carving out time is essential, whether it be for play and distraction-free togetherness with your partner or even for solo masturbation sessions. So is taking stock of any underlying issues that might be derailing your plans to lead a full sexual life brimming with untapped orgasms.
To that end, Grosman has recently launched The Reawakening, a guided, multi-stage intimacy program – delivered in partnership with leading sexologists and psychologists – designed to help women safely reconnect with touch and desire. Ultimately, closing the pleasure gap begins with knowledge. Understanding our bodies. Communicating openly with partners. Rejecting outdated ideas that prioritise male satisfaction while treating female pleasure as optional, but never necessary.
For me, it also means teaching the next generation. Even though I’m sure my own teen daughters would prefer a mother who sticks to reminders about sunscreen, I too now rant about reciprocation, masturbation and pleasure. The sooner we begin treating it as something we’re entitled to claim and communicate, the sooner the pleasure gap begins to close – promise.
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