Opinion | Sorry, your penis isn’t God

You. Yes, you. With your Air Jordans and your sweatpants, that little lock of hair that hangs just so above your eyes — you’re not good enough at sex. I know, you make your girlfriend orgasm every time, right? You’re a wizard with a golden dick and magic balls. Your last Tinder date said so, and she was an e-girl, so.

Nope. I’m sorry to burst your bubble, but you likely suck at sex and/or your girlfriend’s lying to you to be nice and because, well, that’s what we’re taught to do — put a man’s pleasure before our own.

Let me level with you. Statistically, if you are a biological male in a cisgender heterosexual relationship, you’re coming 95% of the time during sex — compared to your girlfriend’s 65% — and you think she’s coming 85% of the time. For lesbian couples, orgasms are more common for both partners — lesbian women orgasm 75% of the time. A woman masturbating alone orgasms more than with a partner.

This is called the orgasm gap, a phenomenon wherein women in heterosexual relationships orgasm the least out of everyone, less than their partners and less than those in LGBTQ+ relationships. While sexual intercourse isn’t solely about reaching completion, heck, completion is always nice. What about heterosexual sex declines a woman’s ability to reach her peak? Hate to break it to you but you play a part in this, Chad.

Women are taught growing up to put a man’s pleasure above their own, so much so that faking orgasms is common. Lili Loofbourow of The Week magazine explains it best.

 “Faking an orgasm achieves all kinds of things: It can encourage the man to finish, which means the pain (if you’re having it) can finally stop,” Loofbourow wrote. “It makes him feel good and spares his feelings. If being a good lover means making the other person feel good, then you’ve excelled on that front too.”

Society has told us that having a relationship with a man is the focal point of our lives, where our worth as human beings comes from — and much of this worth comes from sex. This is a lot to dismantle, and there’s a lot of pressure on us to become better at vocalizing our desires while also being aware of the systematic erasure of them. We don’t want to lie to you about our pleasure, but please understand that it can be hard for us to feel we have agency over our own bodies due to constant objectification.

The lack of proper sexual education and our ability to talk about sex in general, among other things, has led us to this dire point. Female pleasure isn’t discussed in the slightest in high school classrooms, and talks of consent and safe sex are far and few between, even worse for those on the LGBTQ+ spectrum.

While society doesn’t want to make our pleasure a priority, you can. There’s so much work to be done to fix this issue — revamps to sex education, a better culture surrounding female pleasure, massive changes to toxic gender dynamics in the porn industry — but I’m just here today to work with you. If you make one lady cum as a result of this, you are making the world a better, happier, more inclusive space for women. And we’re gonna love you for it.

Here are some tried-and-true tips from a vulva-owner herself.

1. Lube. You’re taught it’s only for old women with desert vulvas but in fact, it’s for everyone. “The Little Mermaid” had it right — it’s better down where it’s wetter. Lube can greatly ease any discomfort your lady friend may feel during penetration and even if she’s already a Slip ‘N slide, this stuff will heighten all of it. Don’t believe me? Try it out. You won’t go back.
2. Open a dialogue. Make sure to check in with her during sex — does this feel good, how about this? Be present. Remember the pressures the world places on her, remember that these pressures don’t suddenly disappear in the bedroom. If you notice her give an odd facial expression, if you feel her tensing, speak up. This takes some of the work off of her and will let her know you’re paying attention to her comfort.
3. Do not jackhammer. I repeat — your dick is not a piece of construction equipment and I am not a broken sidewalk.
4. There’s this thing called the clitoris, and I bet you 20 bucks you either don’t know where it is or don’t know how to stimulate it properly. The external clitoris sits at the peak of the labia majora, and the rest of it is inside the vulva — a giant internal organ. Check out this nifty diagram. You can’t see the external clitoris right away just by looking at a woman’s genitals — it’s hidden under a cute little hood. You can lift this hood and move it to the side. When the clitoris is aroused it rises up and hardens, much like your penis. Turns out you have more in common with women than you thought! The clitoris is the only piece of human anatomy designed specifically for pleasure. It has no other purpose. So, um, man — rub it. Lick it. Interact with it. Tell it how you failed your last history test.
5. Most women cannot come from penetrative sex alone — sorry, your penis isn’t God — but the lack of awareness of this fact in the media and in society causes infinite bad hookups. Clitoral stimulation is usually needed, but rarely given, and sometimes only as an afterthought. Ask your partner how she touches herself and mimic this. She knows best.
6. Invest in a vibrator, or ask if she happens to have one. Using toys during sex shouldn’t be taboo — it greatly increases her chance of climaxing.
7. Foreplay. For the love of all that is good and holy, do not jump right into sticking your weiner into the donut. Women don’t walk around constantly wet and ready to go. Put the work in, Jack. Touch her all over. Tell her sexy things, like how you can load the dishwasher all by yourself. Oh, yeah. There ya go.

Don’t become another nightmare Tinder tale, another case of the orgasm gap at work. With a few tweaks to your sexual lexicon, you can start to change the statistical tide. When women cum they are happy. Women deserve to be happy, just like you. Now hop on over to the Rite Aid and buy some lube!

Genna writes humor and satire primarily ab