Closing the Orgasm Gap
The following is adapted from Sextech Revolution by Andrea Barrica.
Everyone knows about the wage gap — it’s a regular staple of political conversation. We don’t talk nearly as much about the orgasm gap.
The orgasm gap is the discrepancy between men and women in how often they have an orgasm. Every hundred times a straight man has sex, he’ll orgasm around ninety-five times — about 95 percent of the time. Gay men and bisexual men reach orgasm between 89 and 88 percent of the time, and lesbians 86. But for a straight woman — a woman having sex with a man — the number drops to 65 percent (which according to some surveys, may still be too high).
We’ve often been told that women have difficulty orgasming or aren’t as naturally sexual as men. As such, we don’t prioritize women’s sexual pleasure — instead, we blame the victim. But studies have shown that women don’t have the same problem getting off when they’re alone, or when they’re with other women.
The orgasm gap is just another symptom of our miseducation from childhood thanks to taboo, mainstream porn, and bad pop culture scripts.
The overall message tends to be that men should initiate, that orgasm only happens through penetrative sex, and that sex ends when a man climaxes. We’re not taught about arousal, lubrication, or the clitoris. We’re not taught or modeled communication or consent. We’re not taught to navigate things like painful sex or sexual activity after trauma. If porn is teaching our generation about sex, porn is not teaching us how to actually have sex that feels good or works for different bodies.
Pointing out the orgasm gap isn’t meant to shame you if you’re struggling with this. It’s actually the opposite: you’re not alone! Sex can be enjoyable without orgasm, and at the same time, your partner should prioritize your enjoyment, desire, and wellness. Statistics and experience tell us that instead of enjoyment, we’re often faking orgasms and even experiencing discomfort with no path to resolution.
The majority of retail stores that sell sextech, especially in the middle of the country, are still stores like Hustler Hollywood and giant warehouses. Typically, these kinds of stores will carry products with packaging that’s covered in explicit images and marketing directed toward men. They can be pretty heavily misogynistic in their presentation, and all of it very much in your face. Some retail stores go beyond sexist products and unhelpful clerks. There might be places for people to watch porn and masturbate, or watch peep shows. Instead of feeling like a place for wellness, they often feel dark and shady and unsafe, especially if you’re a woman.
If you have access to a feminist sex store, the experience is totally different. The clerks will be trained sex educators, which is incredible. I bought my first sexual wellness product at Good Vibrations in Berkeley, and I could see myself going there with a group of friends and having fun shopping with them. It was amazing.
Women have always preferred in-person education when it’s available. In Vibrator Nation, Lynn Comella talks about this problem — before feminist sex stores, she writes, women just didn’t go to them at all.
But well-lit, resource-rich stores like Good Vibes are located in a small handful of cities — inaccessible to most of the population. Rural and suburban communities often have zoning regulations that push any sex-related retail far outside the city center, often in an industrial section of town, or off-the-highway near a truck stop.
Thanks to the internet, people who already know what they want can go online to respected retailers like Adam & Eve, Good Vibes, or LoveHoney in the UK. Even Amazon sells sex toys — if you look closely enough. But buying online doesn’t help people who want education, or who need more information before making a purchase. This space of sextech and sexual wellness hasn’t filled up yet because mainstream retailers don’t know how — or can’t — approach it.
If we had a shame-free sex educational system, if we had medical doctors that could talk about pleasure in a knowledgeable way, if we could have discussions with our partners without embarrassment, if we could ask friends for recommendations, the industry could just focus on making the best products and then put them out there in the world to be purchased. As it is, we all have to do some education and de-stigmatization no matter what part of the sexual wellness market you’re working in. People who have been raised in a conservative way, which is a huge part of the population, have to go through a process before they will even be open to buying a vibrator.
The company that will win sexual wellness isn’t a current dominant player. It won’t be Amazon or any of legacy consumer brands we know today. It will be a new entrant.
It’s going to be one of us.
For more advice on closing the orgasm gap, you can find Sextech Revolution on Amazon.
Andrea Barrica is the CEO and founder of O.school, a judgment-free resource to learn about sexuality and pleasure. She’s one of the only queer women of color to raise millions of venture capital for her sextech company. Previously, Andrea co-founded the leading financial solution for growing startups, inDinero.com, and served as a venture partner at 500 Startups, where she invested in startups all over the world. She overcame fear-based sex education in public schools and a strict Filipino-Catholic upbringing to become an in-demand sexual wellness speaker and the leading sexual wellness industry contributor to Forbes.
