We have some news for women who have sex with men. Turns out, your orgasm isn't just about you — it's about the guy you had sex with, too.
A new study from The Journal of Sex Research says that when women have an orgasm it's a "masculinity achievement" for the men they sleep with. Essentially, your orgasm makes him feel more manly and therefore gives him pleasure, too.
Now, show of hands, who is surprised by this? Yeah, us neither.
The fact that men make women's orgasms about them is about as shocking as the fact that straight men have the most orgasms. In other words, not at all.
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Both authors on the study are women, who wanted to gauge how men reacted to women's orgasms because "some research has suggested that focus on women’s orgasms, though ostensibly for women, may actually serve men," according to the study. A man's enthusiasm to give a woman an orgasm is more selfish than it might seem, the authors wrote.
They recruited 810 men to read a short (erotic) story and imagine that a woman either did or did not orgasm during sex with them. The men then rated how masculine they would feel after each situation.
Sex was considered a "major success" if the men were able to always make a woman orgasm who rarely came when having sex with other partners and it was a "minor success" if the woman always orgasmed during sex with them but could also orgasm with other partners.
So not only were these men concerned about their own ability to perform, they were concerned with the fictional women's sexual history. They hoped for women who couldn't orgasm with other partners. That sounds pretty selfish to us.
We're not saying all men only care about a woman's orgasm because it makes them feel good, but fragile masculinity seemingly has a stake in plenty of (probably cisgender) man-on-woman sexual encounters.
The idea of a "masculinity achievement" might be new, but it's certainly not a new experience. Women fake orgasms all the time, likely because they feel the pressure from male partners who feel that sex is only successful if she comes.