How to Have an Orgasm?

If pleasure can be such a powerful sexual motivation, what exactly triggers a woman’s orgasm? In the 1960s, it was proposed that a woman’s orgasm was some sort of spinal reflex caused by nerves firing in the pelvic muscles as a response to genital engorgement. In the 1970s, the clitoris became the popular candidate for activating these sensory impulses—which still were thought to build up to a supposed spinal reflex. In the 1980s, scientists suggested that once sexual arousal intensifies to a certain level, a hypothetical “orgasm center” in the brain is activated. Today, scientists cannot say exactly what triggers orgasms in women, or whether there is a special “orgasmatron” in the brain that is responsible. (Researchers are just beginning to use brain imaging techniques to identify exactly which regions of the brain are involved in orgasm and whether they differ between men and women.)

We do know, however, that orgasms in women can be induced many different ways. Stimulation of the clitoris and vagina are the most common means. Women usually achieve orgasms through clitoral stimulation much more easily than through sexual intercourse. In fact, most surveys show that only about 60 percent of orgasmic women are able to have an orgasm through intercourse alone. It is simply the case that many women need more stimulation of the clitoris to achieve an orgasm than is provided by intercourse. Some women worry or think they are missing out on something big if they are unable to have an orgasm through intercourse alone. Rest assured, if this describes you, that vaginally induced orgasms are no more meaningful, intense, or pleasurable than clitorally induced orgasms (although some women who are able to have orgasms both ways do have their preferences).

The belief that vaginal orgasms are somehow better than clitoral orgasms can be traced to Sigmund Freud’s assertion in the 1920s that clitoral orgasms were “infantile” and that the vagina was the center of a “mature” woman’s sexual response. Freud had a hard time imagining that the penis was not central to every woman’s sexual pleasure, and as a result, millions of perfectly functional women have doubted their sexual abilities. In the 1960s, Masters and Johnson reported that all orgasms in women are physiologically identical, regardless of the type of stimulation that triggered them—putting Freud’s theory to bed. There is now some limited laboratory research showing that a different pattern of uterine and pelvic muscle activity occurs with vaginally induced versus clitorally induced orgasms. However, even if different uterine and pelvic muscle activity occurs during vaginal compared to clitoral orgasms, it is a small factor in the overall orgasm experience.

Some women are able to have orgasms from clitoral, G-spot, or cervical stimulation, and some reach orgasm from pressure applied to the mons pubis, the fatty mound of flesh covered by pubic hair that lies directly over the pubic bone. But women have also reported reaching orgasm through breast or nipple stimulation, from mental imagery or fantasy, or even from hypnosis or during their sleep. Thus, orgasms can occur in women without any genital involvement whatsoever. The fact that orgasms can occur while a woman is sleeping suggests that even consciousness may not be an essential requirement. Occasionally, “spontaneous orgasms” have been described in the psychiatric literature where a woman has an orgasm when there is no apparent sexual stimulus involved.