Sex facts

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The orgasm gap is real, and it is not about anatomy

It closes almost completely between women in same-sex relationships.

The orgasm gap is real, and it is not about anatomy

In a survey of 52,588 adults, 95 per cent of heterosexual men said they usually or always orgasmed with a familiar partner. Heterosexual women reported 65 per cent. That thirty-point gap is the finding most often quoted, and usually explained as a difference in how bodies work.

The same study is the reason that explanation fails. Lesbian women reported 86 per cent — twenty-one points above heterosexual women, with the same anatomy. What separated the groups was behaviour: the higher-orgasm groups reported more manual and oral stimulation, more time, and more explicit communication about what they wanted.

Sources

Frederick et al., Archives of Sexual Behavior (2018); Herbenick et al., Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy (2018)

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At orgasm, part of the brain switches off

Scanners found deactivation where nobody expected it.

Somebody measured it with a stopwatch

500 couples, five countries, and a number far below the guess.

More sex stops helping at about once a week

Above that, the association with wellbeing flattens completely.
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General information, not medical advice. Anything persistent or painful belongs with a doctor, who has heard it before.