Why Some Women Can’t Climax From Intercourse

Are you having trouble reaching orgasm? You’re not alone.  Turns out, the female orgasm eludes a majority of women.  Here's why.

More common than you think. Can’t orgasm from vaginal penetration alone? You're not the only one. The Los Angeles Times reports that as few as 7 percent of women can reliably climax from penetration alone, while 27 percent never do. But why?

”The rule of thumb.” Research led by Kim Wallen, a professor of psychology and behavioral neuroendocrinology at Emory University, from 2008, shed some light on why some women are able to climax from vaginal intercourse alone, and others can’t. According to the Los Angeles Times, it’s something called “the rule of thumb.” Apparently, "Clitoris-vagina distances less than 2.5 cm — that's roughly from the tip of your thumb to your first knuckle — tend to yield reliable orgasms during sex.”

Distance matters. What “the rule of thumb” essentially means is that if your clitoris is close to your vagina, you can climax from sex alone. However, if your C-V distance is more than a thumb’s length, regular intercourse alone might not do the trick. While this might sound totally new and surprising to you, research backing up the distance theory has been around for decades.

History. The L.A. Times reports that Wallen isn’t the first to notice a correlation between a woman's C-V distance and her ability to climax. According to the outlet, "In the 1920s, Princess Marie Bonaparte, a French psychoanalyst and close friend of Sigmund Freud, grew fed up with her own lack of orgasmic response. In her professional practice, she saw plenty of patients with the same complaint (‘frigidity,' in the parlance of the day). She blamed physiology, not psyche. Bonaparte collected C-V and orgasm data from her patients and in 1924 delicately published her observations under a pseudonym. (She also persuaded an Austrian surgeon to experiment on her, by cutting around her clitoris and stretching it closer to her vagina — with disappointing results.)"

The plus side. Got a large C-V distance? Don’t be discouraged. "Personally, I don't think the inability to experience no-hands, penis-only intercourse with orgasm says anything about a happy sex life,” Wallen told the L.A. Times. "Maybe it could allow couples to be a bit more inventive in how they have sex.”

Fewer orgasms. Distance aside, women are less likely to orgasm during sex than men are in general. A study published in the Journal of Sexual Medicine found that females only climax 62.9 percent of the time with a “familiar partner.” Men? Well, they orgasm 85.1 percent of the time. Sigh.

Fewer orgasms. Indeed, there’s more bad news. Women are even less likely to climax during casual sex, with only about 40 percent saying that they came during their last hookup, according to a study in the American Sociological Review. Nearly 80 percent of men, on the other hand, said they orgasmed during their last sexual encounter. Double sigh.

The lucky ones. Obviously, not all women have trouble finishing during sex. For example, let’s take a look at lesbians. According to a study published in the Journal of Sexual Medicine, lesbians reported having more big Os more often than straight women and bisexual women did.

Girl-on-girl action. So, why is is that lesbians have more orgasms? There are two main reasons: one, they’re more familiar with the equipment, and two, they don’t rely on just penetration in the sack. In other words, there’s not that much emphasis on the insertion of objects (or penises) between lesbian partners.

Masturbation. Most women do not rely on just penetration when they get off by themselves, so why would it be any different with a partner? One small study discovered that most females hone in on the clitoris during masturbation. Oddly enough, however, the same participants thought that other women got off by self-pentration — and that they were “lone weirdos” for not doing so. But here’s the thing: You’re not a freak of nature for not inserting a dildo when you masturbate — turns out, most women don’t.

Fixing the errors. So, what can you do to climax more often during sex? Pay attention to your pleasure, and don’t simply chalk up the lack of orgasm to bad luck. "Without meaning to, women often wind up getting in the way of their own sexual satisfaction," sexologist Carole Altman, PhD, author of "You Can Be Your Own Sex Therapist,” told Cosmopolitan. "You have to own your orgasm — you can't just rely on a man to get the job done.”

Fixing the errors. Make foreplay a priority, and always insist on some pregame action — at least 20 minutes of it. "Most women need about 20 minutes of arousal time to reach the 'orgasmic platform,' when the clitoris is most sensitive and the body is primed for stimulation," sexologist Yvonne K. Fulbright, author of the "Hot Guide to Safer Sex,” told Cosmo. "Skipping the whole sexual-response cycle makes it harder to get off.”

Fixing the errors. Another carnal error that women make? Ignoring the C-spot. Though the G-spot gets a ton of attention for being an erogenous zone, it’s the clitoris that houses the most pleasure for you during intercourse. "There are more nerve endings in the C-spot than there are inside the vagina,” Fulbright told Cosmo. "So it's rare for women to have an orgasm without some sort of clitoral stimulation.” Pro tip: The girl-on-top position is a great way to hit your C-spot against his pelvis for optimal pleasure.

Fixing the errors. Other sex slip-ups you might be guilty of include (but are not limited to): forgetting to pee, changing positions too often and zoning out. Seriously, ladies — you’re not doing yourself any favors by committing any of these mistakes during sex. Don’t just rely on your partner, and take control of your orgasms. It’s about time you do.