I’m reading the excellent book Straight: The Surprisingly Short History of Heterosexuality by Hanne Blank, and have arrived at the chapter about sex. Hallelujah.
One of the interesting lessons from this section of the book is that when the female orgasm went mainstream – i.e. when “marriage manuals” started instructing men to give a shit about more than just their own pleasure – the goal-of-all-goals immediately became simultaneous orgasm during penetrative sex. Because of course it did.
Blank notes in one section that this type of orgasm was euphemistically referred to as “true marriage” – as if no marriage could be legitimate, in the eyes of the church nor the eyes of society, if this achievement was not accomplished. Sure, yeah, that makes sense: assign a near-impossible task in an area of life where most people at the time know next-to-nothing, and give them only obliquely coded instructional books to guide them. Cool society ya got there.
While I’m glad female orgasms were acknowledged and semi-prioritized (albeit not enough and millennia too late), it seems ridiculous that “during PIV and simultaneously with one’s partner” was held up as the gold standard for women’s climaxes, considering that even today – when we have the benefit of information about the clitoris, countless sex position guides, and access to vibrators – achieving simultaneous orgasm is difficult. I mean, how many people do you know (who have PIV sex at least semi-regularly) who’ve ever even achieved it?