Women actually need to learn to reach orgasm. The best training is masturbation. Once it is achieved, you know what you are looking for and it becomes more natural. Be happy to be a woman! We can be satisfied with or without orgasm, but teach yourself. Only about one-quarter of us get there through penetration and thrusting. We need some additional stimulation from a partner.

> I am twenty years old and have had seven or eight sexual partners and I don't think I have ever had an orgasm.

Can one infer from this that you do not know what an orgasm feels like? Do you masturbate, and if so, can you climax regularly and consistently? If your answer is "no" then this must be your first step. Why? Because each person, male and female, is responsible for his/her own orgasms. We do not give them away. All any of us can hope to accomplish is to help our partner achieve them.

If you have never learned to masturbate, then you cannot expect to climax from someone else's effort. Why? Because while each of us masturbates in basically the same way for our gender, there are enough variations from individual to individual, day to day, to make helping someone reach an orgasm very problematical without some help.

Help comes in the form of guidance. Because each of us stimulates our self slightly differently and often with some "mid course corrections" along the way, some form of feedback is required. When we masturbate we benefit from built-in feedback along the autonomic nervous system. When we turn the reins over to our partner this is lost. What we must do is to provide verbal and/or non-verbal feedback on how we are responding to his/her touch and for what we need now/next.

You can also show your partner how you masturbate and take his hand in yours and guide his movements over a few sessions until he learns to mimic your technique--all the while providing feedback.

> I am disappointed about it but I have still been very sexually satisfied.

Brandye, our resident M.D., explains that orgasms are not the biological imperative that they are for men. So, yes, women are often very satisfied without having an orgasm.

Help is on the way. Please familiarize yourself with the Index found at the top of the main screen. It contains links to helpful informative insightful, as well as how-to articles that discuss the most common questions and concerns people ask about--like yours!

> While having sex I feel like I just get to a point where I can't take anymore because it feels so good..but that's it..It is like my body just can't go any further.

You can and you will. Try indirect stimulation of the clitoris by folding the inner labia over it and massaging it thru them. Explore rubbing the shaft of the clitoris. These alternative approaches work very well when you are very highly aroused and the clitoris becomes too sensitive to touch. This is the time to switch, not stop.

Please read the articles under this heading:
OF CONCERN TO GIRLS/WOMEN

Welcome to the SI101 Board and its Forums. I hope you will enjoy participating. In addition, please familiarize yourself with the FAQs, the Posting Guidelines, also found at the top of the main screen, as well as clicking on the site's Home Page, for even more information.

i hope this is of help? Got questions?