What is the Orgasm Gap, Actually?

There's more to it than whether you cum or not.

- Lois Shearing

If you open any porn tube site and click a video starring a man and a woman, chances are, she’s writhing around in pleasure seconds after penetration (and she’s almost certainly being penetrated). She’s also most definitely orgasming before her male partner(s). Despite being almost ubiquitous in porn, most women will tell you this scene doesn’t look like their own sexual experiences at all.

The Orgasm Gap, sometimes called the Pleasure Gap, is a term coined in the early 2000s, to describe the difference in frequency of orgasms achieved during sex between cis men and cis women (although some of the first studies suggesting a gap were done in the 1990s). Spoiler alert: There’s a big difference between the two experiences. And the odds are not in women’s favour.

But why do women orgasm less than men? Are we just hardwired to be harder to please? Or is it more to do with what sexual pleasure looks like for women? We spoke with UK-based sexuality psychologist Dr Laurie Mintz, author of Becoming Cliterate: Why Orgasm Equality Matters—And How To Get It to find out more about the Orgasm Gap.

WHAT IS THE ORGASM GAP?

Overall, men are far more likely than women to say they ‘always orgasm’ during sex. In fact, there’s a long line of studies and data from all over the world that suggests women are climaxing less frequently.

Mintz explains that we’ve historically put the orgasm gap down to women’s bodies being “difficult”. She says: “But two other gaps make it clear that [the problem] is the culture and not our body. When women pleasure themselves, 95% reach orgasm easily and within minutes.”