There’s a debate in the sexual sphere that has raged for centuries, and that debate is: Are vaginal orgasms superior to clitoral orgasms? And further: Is everyone with a vagina capable of having vaginal orgasms, or are some of us “doomed” to only have clitoral orgasms – if that – as long as we live?
I find this debate annoying as hell, for three reasons:
- It shames a huge amount of people for the way they get off (or don’t get off), which we definitely don’t need more of.
- It implies that vulva-bearing bodies are something to be argued about and commentated on by others, when instead we could just listen to those people about how their own bodies work, since they’re the ones who would know.
- It’s largely the result of some theories Freud put forth in his day, and he was extremely wrong about a lot of stuff, not to mention frequently misogynist AF.
While I won’t deny that Freud was an important and influential figure in the psychology field, and that some of his ideas had merit, his thoughts on vaginal versus clitoral orgasms were utterly unhinged, and unsupported by any legitimate science I’m aware of. He wrote that part of a healthy transition to adulthood for (cis) women was unlearning the “phallic” desire for clitoral orgasms and instead starting to derive all their sexual pleasure from penetration. He believed that if someone remained “fixated” on having clitoral orgasms, it meant that they were repressed and “infantile.”
I suppose at the time, it would’ve been surprising for a stately male doctor to talk about female sexual pleasure at all – and certainly, his theories laid the groundwork for research that was done later on the G-spot and other sites of vaginal pleasure, hence the worldwide proliferation of A-spot dildos and G-spot vibrators, which I am definitely a fan of. (Freud was multilingual, and one wonders what he would’ve thought of these G-punkt-vibratoren and vibratori punto G if he’d been around to see them.)
Many theorists have also argued that the G-spot is part of the clitoris – its internal portion, which is much larger than what we see on the outside of the body – and that’s an interesting point that raises a lot of questions about how pleasure and orgasm function. But by and large, I think Freud really fucked us over with his thoughts on sexuality, especially those focused on the clitoris and vagina, and we’re still seeing the effects of that today.
See, anatomically speaking, the clitoris is analogous to the penis. This means that expecting someone to experience pleasure – let alone orgasm – from sex where their clit is completely ignored is every bit as unreasonable as expecting a person to get off without having their dick touched at all. It certainly happens, but only for a minority of people, plenty of whom still find it easier to come when, y’know, their main sexual pleasure organ is being stimulated.
Freud’s narrative of women “aging out of” clitoral orgasms and somehow magically starting to have vaginal orgasms instead is hyperfocused on heterosexual, penis-in-vagina sex. He confabulated upon and romanticized his notion of what penetrative sex “should” be like – i.e. effortlessly, mutually pleasurable for both participants all on its own – instead of listening to people about what that type of sex actually felt like for them. And his views have persevered into a whole new millennium, with mainstream publications and doctors alike still debating clitoral orgasms as if there’s anything less real, less legitimate or less good about them.
I’d love if we could fully shift, as a culture, toward viewing the G-spot and other vaginal erogenous zones as being more akin to the prostate than the penis – since, anatomically and pleasure-wise, they are. Many people love prostate stimulation but still need some dick contact if orgasm’s gonna happen, and this is understood to be normal and expected. The same should be true for folks who require clit stimulation in order to get off, which is entirely normal (I’ve seen various studies estimate this is the case for around 70-90% of people with vulvas).
Of course, the main reason this fact hasn’t gained more traction in the dominant culture is that it forces cis men to contend with the fact that their dick alone isn’t a fantastical orgasm-administering magic wand. It requires them to give pleasure intentionally and effortfully, instead of just assuming it’ll happen as a byproduct of seeking their own direct pleasure through intercourse. A lot of people with vaginas have also absorbed this messaging, such that they may feel “broken” or “high-maintenance” for having entirely normal sexual anatomy and sexual desires. Imagine a cis guy guiltily asking his girlfriend, “Hey, I know we don’t really do this, but would you maybe wanna touch my dick sometime? I think it would feel good for me.” This, sadly, is an exact parallel of the situation many sexually active people with vaginas are in.
But we don’t have to keep perpetuating this paradigm that tells us our bodies are faulty and our desire for pleasure is annoying or immature. We can decide to look at sex in a new way, one that’s actually supported by science and the anecdotal observations of millions of people around the world. We can kick Freud out of our beds, shouting this message back through the centuries: Our pleasure matters, our pleasure is real, and we can and will pursue our pleasure on our own terms.