Could Orgasm Anxiety Be Holding You Back?

Sex not as much fun any more ’coz you’re worried if you’re doing it right... or if he’s liking it enough? Don’t let such fears play spoilsport.

- Emily Abbate

When it comes to sex, performance anxiety has pretty much always been labelled a guy thing.

(‘Dude, can you get it up, keep it up, and rock her world?’). It is a lot of pressure. But the truth is, women suffer from similar bedroom hang-ups. In fact, according to a recent study, female performance anxiety, or FPA, has always existed. And it can mess with desire, and rob women of satisfying sexual experiences.

“FPA manifests from the same place as men’s—it’s the fear of not being good enough,” explains Jim Pfaus, a psychology professor at Concordia University, Canada. Common causes include a woman’s worries about what she looks like naked, what she smells or tastes like ‘down there’, whether she’s having sex ‘right’, and if she’s pleasing her partner. Then there’s the biggie: stressing about taking too long to climax or whether she will O at all.