Brother, I cited 5 papers here.
The Finnish study is massive and contains a broad representation across society; it's also unamerican. The latest FINSEX survey contained 2,049 women between the ages of 18 and 70.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5087699/
The orgasm rates trend with the American studies, even the ones on college students, and they're roughly similar even when clitoral stimulation is used (but orgasm rates improve when clitoral stimulation is used).
63%-98% or so is a profound gap.
That's nearly 1 in 3 women not reliably having orgasms during sex.
As a man, I'm one of the rare guys who doesn't always climax and let me tell you, it's frustrating as hell. So I empathize.
For a while, I tried an SSRI and could rarely get off. That was Hell.
I guess I'll spoil my follow-up piece on this: the key to orgasm has to do with women's beliefs that their partner's orgasms are more important than their own. It has to do with how women in society, whether American or Finnish, come to view their role in sexual behavior as passive and secondary.
And, as I said here, focusing on orgasm nearly eliminates the gap. So does experimenting with more sex acts per sex session (which is why anal sex closes the gap—usually, a couple who has anal sex has tried several different sex acts per sessions before engaging in anal sex):
We know that the orgasm gap is closed when people prioritize orgasm, when they engage in more sex acts, and when they engage in a variety of different sex acts, everything ranging from “vanilla” stuff like sending sweet & sexy emails to one another to giving back massages and even anal sex, they tend to come up on top, having much better sex in the process.
Addressing relationship factors are the best cure for orgasmic problems in relationships, not sexual acts per se.
This mirrors what the Finnish study authors conclude:
Contrary to expectations, women did not have orgasms that are more frequent by increasing their experience and practice of masturbation, or by experimenting with different partners in their lifetime. The keys to their more frequent orgasms lay in mental and relationship factors. These factors and capacities included orgasm importance, sexual desire, sexual self-esteem, and openness of sexual communication with partners.
The orgasm gap is definitely no myth, but, as my newest soon-to-be-relesed title says, The Orgasm Gap is More Complicated Than You Think.
Thanks for reading :)
