Experts weigh in on why this troubling discrepancy exists — and why it may increase with age.
We all know orgasms are powerful, but their effects can extend beyond those toe-clenching moments between the sheets — they can do wonders for your quality of life. Not only can they usually boost your mood for the rest of the day, but research shows that orgasms increase blood flow to the brain and stimulate our minds as much as an intellectual exercise (which means you can skip your daily sudoku every once in a while if you swap in some sexual pleasure).
So we should all go on our merry way and happily indulge in as much consensual sex as we please, right? Sure — except that for some of us, achieving climax isn’t so simple. Unfortunately, heterosexual women are less likely to orgasm during sex than their male partners — a state of inequality commonly referred to as “the orgasm gap.” Given that women have to fight for equal reproductive rights and professional opportunities, why should they lag behind in the bedroom, too? Even more concerning, the gap can widen with age, which isn’t the retirement benefit we had in mind.
To explore the ins and outs of this discrepancy, we spoke to Anna Lee, co-founder and VP of Engineering at Lioness, a smart vibrator company that aims to help users understand their orgasms, and Laurie Mintz, Ph.D., a sexuality psychologist, professor, and author who aims to empower women sexually. Both agree that there are real solutions that can help close this gap — because pretending it doesn’t exist isn’t doing much good for anyone.
What is the orgasm gap?
Generally, the orgasm gap describes a disparity in sexual satiation between heterosexual women and their heterosexual male partners. If you’ve never had trouble reaching orgasm with a partner, you may doubt the existence of the orgasm gap. Isn’t that a myth? you might think. We’re sorry to say that the discrepancy is very real: A 2017 study of over 50,000 U.S. adults published in the scientific journal Archives of Sexual Behavior found that heterosexual men reported orgasming 95 percent of the time “when sexually intimate”; in contrast, the same study found that heterosexual women reported orgasming 65 percent of the time.
To make matters worse, the National Survey of Sexual Health and Behavior found that men routinely overestimate how often their female partners orgasm: “85 percent of men report that their partner had an orgasm at the most recent sexual event; this compares to the 64 percent of women who report having had an orgasm at their most recent sexual event.” When we talk about the orgasm gap, we usually compare heterosexual women’s satisfaction to their male, heterosexual counterparts. It’s worth noting, however, that lesbian women also orgasm significantly more than heterosexual women — lesbian women reported orgasming 86 percent of the time they were sexually intimate. Bisexual women, in contrast, reported that they orgasmed 66 percent of the time.
Why don’t heterosexual women orgasm as often as heterosexual men?
This probably won’t come as a surprise, but Dr. Mintz confirms that there’s no biological quirk that makes vaginal or clitoral orgasms inherently more “difficult” to come by: “There are a lot of reasons for the [orgasm] gap persisting, and all of them are cultural.”
Lee agrees that the orgasm gap doesn’t reflect an inherent issue with vagina. Instead, she and Dr. Mintz both argue that the gap could be closed, in large part, with better sex education.
“As we were building the concept for our company,” Lee says, “people didn’t know why women’s sexual health needed to be studied, or why orgasms needed to be studied. We’re doing so much work in educating because we realize that there’s such a gap in education of sex as a whole.”
For example, “96 percent of women need some kind of clitoral stimulation to experience orgasm,” Dr. Mintz says. “Yet we don’t learn about this in sex ed. Porn and media show women having fast and fabulous orgasms from intercourse alone. Couple those images with the lack of sex ed, and women are not getting the stimulation they need during sexual encounters.”
And if you think that sex ed is working just fine, there’s hard proof that many people are still confused about anatomy. In a 2019 YouGov survey, respondents “could not identify or describe the function of the urethra (58 percent), labia (47 percent) or vagina (52 percent).”
Lee points out that there’s also a research gap between studies on male sexual function and female sexual function: “For every seven papers about male sexual function, there’s one on female sexual function. Most often, that sexual function paper is on fertility.” This lack of research means that seemingly basic anatomical knowledge has only just emerged: “We didn’t know anything about the clitoris until very recently. We found out the clitoris has over 10,000 nerve fibers just last year.” Meanwhile, the study of erections in medical terms dates back to the time of Hippocrates (who thought arousal was partly caused by spirits flowing into the penis).
The cause of the information gap isn’t availability or interest, though. “We have a research platform within our company,” says Lee. “A lot of our users want to be a part of the research program because they want to be able to participate in studies. So we don’t see a lack of researchers or participants. There are incredible studies that our researchers are excited to do. The difficulty here is funding. It’s finding people who want to fund these studies and see the value in them.”
According to Dr. Mintz, existing research is slanted toward younger women: “A lot of the research is with college students — they’re easy to study. But we know that the orgasm gap is biggest in hookup sex. It closes in ‘friends with benefits,’ and it’s smallest of all in the context of a relationship.” Since college students often aren’t looking to settle down, it’s not surprising that their data might be different from someone who’s in a happy, fulfilled, long-term relationship.
Do women have fewer orgasms after menopause?
Dr. Mintz explains that age also matters, because significant biological changes impact the gap: “Many menopausal women are indeed having difficulty orgasming. Hormonal shifts can cause strange new side effects that definitely don’t feel erotic: “In menopause, we see a decrease in [both] estrogen and progesterone. That causes vaginal dryness and sexual pain. Sadly, many women don’t know that there are FDA-approved treatments for that.” And even the ones who do know might not be able to indulge, thanks to the menopause pink tax that can seriously add up.
Lee agrees that discussions about women’s sex and sexuality often ignore older people: “One of our biggest audiences at Lioness is the 50-plus community. But when we talk about owning a vibrator, people think about it as such a young person’s thing. We don’t talk about the nuances of the orgasm gap and the variety of causes for that gap at different times in a person’s life.”
Dr. Mintz points out that sex toys, in particular, are important for menopausal people: “We know women who use [sex toys] have easier and more frequent orgasms. That’s especially important during menopause — a lot of times [menopausal] women need more intense stimulation and vibrators can really help.”
While you can always integrate toys into your partnered sex, Dr. Mintz recommends investing time in solo self-exploration: “Sometimes, menopausal women need a different type of stimulation than they needed at an earlier age. Masturbation can help them figure this out.” The better news? Masturbation creates a sort of positive feedback loop of pleasure: “Masturbation can rev up one’s sex drive — the more sex you have, the more you want, and that includes sex with yourself. Masturbation is also the most empirically supported technique to help women who are having difficulty orgasming learn what they like, with the next step being transferring that to partner sex.”
That said, aging isn’t a guaranteed death knell to your sex life. Dr. Mintz clarifies that as women become more comfortable with their partners, they’re more likely to communicate their needs, which can result in positive outcomes: “As women age, many become more orgasmic — they get more comfortable with what they need to experience orgasm and can tell their partners. One study found that, unsurprisingly, orgasm rates were highest when women receive oral sex and when they touch their clitoris during intercourse — and these behaviors are more likely to occur in the context of relationship sex.”
Despite this good news, Dr. Mintz does point out that the effects of stress may weigh heavily on women, which is a problem that might worsen with age: “We know from research that women have more chronic stress than men. Having an orgasm requires turning off your brain and focusing on your body. When you’re stressed, you’re less likely to do that.” She adds, “The same goes for body image. You can’t have an orgasm if you’re holding your stomach in or when you’re supporting yourself in position so your partner can’t see you.”
Regardless of your age or feelings about your body, Dr. Mintz advocates for using orgasm as a tool for letting go: “One of the antidotes is mindfulness, which is the ability to put your mind and your body in the same place. It’s incredibly hard, but you can focus on your sensations during a sexual encounter instead of worrying if you look OK or thinking about that email you forgot to return.”
