Betty Dodson with Carlin Ross

Better Orgasms. Better World.

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I wanted to write to you for an answer about a problem I’m having, but also to express my concern at the homogeneity of the sexual pleasure/how to orgasm advice I have received from every source I have found.

I have never had an orgasm, and I would like to. I have asked for advice from friends, websites, books, and sex tips blogs, and they all tout the same line: masturbate. Especially, masturbate by playing w/ your clitoris. Well, I am writing to you today because I have tried that—the rest of this letter lists the ways I have tried that—and yet I have not found a significant increase in my pleasure or excitement during partner sex or masturbation after having tried. I haven’t even made progress by masturbating.

Below are the things I have tried, my obstacles, and my observations. I hope they will help you come up w/ some suggestions for what else to try. But, as you read, please keep in mind the key question I want answered about reaching orgasm for a female-bodied individual:

What should one do when masturbation doesn’t work?

As I mentioned before, the majority of advice I have received from different sources on how to figure out how to reach orgasm is the same: masturbate (especially by playing w/ your clitoris and vulva, rather than your G-spot).

The sentences in quotation marks are the pieces of advice/tips I have found. Below them are my results.

“Play w/ yourself. See what turns you on.”

Jah, I get it. My problem? My body doesn’t respond much when I touch myself, whether I use my fingers or toys, whether I use more lube or less lube, whether I’m ragingly horny when I start masturbating or I feel neutral. On a scale of one (agony) to ten (bliss) w/ five being neutral, when I touch myself it feels like a 5.5 or a 6. If I’m lucky, it will be 6.5 for a few seconds.

“Try watching porn or reading erotica while you masturbate.”

I’ve tried masturbating (clitoral, labial, and G-spot) while watching porn and erotic literature I really loved on several occasions, and there was no improvement.

“Try different positions.”

I have.

“Experiment w/ different toys.”

I’ve used vibrators, dildos, fabric, stuffed toys, shower heads, chairs/bicycle seats, pillows, and furniture. I have experimented w/ bladder fullness to increase my genitals’ sensitivity to stimulation. A lot of these feel nice, but they don’t get me far.

I have tried placing vibrators (whilst they are vibrating) against my clitoris and it feels uncomfortable. I have to apply pressure through the hood over my clitoris, or not the hood when applied directly, to feel anything. When I apply pressure to this area w/ a vibrator, it is uncomfortable.

“Create ambiance. Relax. Light some candles, scatter rose petals around the room, take a relaxing bath, make sure you won’t be interrupted, and make an enticing setting for you to explore your body.”

The lighting was nice, but the rest of it was not helpful. Also, me exploring myself is not exciting, no matter the interior decorations. I don’t know, maybe I’m just not my type?

“Explore your clitoris/labia majora/labia minora/the space in between the folds.”

If I do clitoral stimulation for long enough (fifteen minutes), my right leg and toes start twitching, which I have been told may indicate that one is close to orgasm/peaking. Well, once I reach that point I try to continue as long as I can, but nothing happens. I either wind up stopping because my muscles are exhausted, my pleasure plummets, and/or I lose interest. If my muscles had the stamina to keep that up for forty-five minutes, maybe something would happen, but there’s the problem. Also, when I stimulate my clitoris directly or indirectly, I feel my body responding (leg twitches eventually) and I feel physical sensations from touching my clitoris, but…they are not what I would call pleasurable. They are positive, pleasant sensations, but they don’t feel like “pleasure” to me. It’s not the sort of sensation I actively want because it’s not very pleasurable for me. To describe it a different way: I enjoyed the film, but I wouldn’t pay to see it. When partners have played w/ my bits in the past, it often feels better, sometimes a lot better, but they’re doing the same movements I do on my own.

Playing w/ my labias feels nice, but it doesn’t get me far.

Pressure against the space between my urethra opening and my vaginal opening is nice, but it doesn’t do much for me.

“Try taking vacations from your medications that impact your sex drive.”

I wish that was an option. It is not.

“Explore non-obvious parts of your body, such as breast/nipple stimulation, your shins, your knees, or your feet.”

Tried it. My breasts are not sensitive to stimulation. :S Shins feel nice, feet feel interesting, but they do not give me much pleasure. Scalp play gets me excited, but it’s only pleasurable for me when someone else is doing it. I have found no “magically sensitive area” on my body I can access on my own other than my G-spot. And me pressing that one, as you are aware, hasn’t gotten me where I want to be.

“If you have a kink/fetish that really turns you on, try incorporating that into your exploration.”

I have tried this w/ my partners (my kinks/fantasies entail the real physical presence and participation of another person). It increased my excitement a bit, but it did not result in a real improvement in my level of pleasure. I did not get closer to a peak or to breaking through a plateau/approaching orgasm.

“Try alternating between stimulating different sensitive parts of your body.”

Alternate between what? My G-spot and the places that aren’t pleasurable?

“When/before you masturbate, touch yourself the way you like to be touched during foreplay.”

I tend to only get excited by my partner licking and sucking on my neck and ears. Sadly, I am not Gene Simmons.

“Try simultaneously stimulating your clitoris and your G-spot.”

When I do that or have a partner do this, I wind up being able to feel only the clitoral stimulation OR the G-spot stimulation, not both. :S When it’s going well w/ my G-spot, I can feel little or no sensation from my clitoris (or when clitoral stimulation starts, I become numb to my G-spot), and on the rare occasion that the majority of my pleasure is coming from my clitoris, then I become numb to whatever is going on in my vaginal canal.

So, at this point, I feel frustrated and sort of at wit’s end. I don’t experience much pleasure when I play w/ my clitoris or my other external bits. When I or a partner apply direct or indirect stimulation to my clitoris, it feels nice, but it actually feels good when someone else is touching it, yet the sensations from clitoral stimulation still sometimes feel annoying rather than good. The best pleasure I have felt came from deep vaginal stimulation using dildos and vibrators, but I don’t like vibrations in my vagina, I like thrusting. This has its own problems, for A) it is difficult for me to reach a pleasing angle for said thrusting (my arms are two inches shorter than average), B) I often become desensitized or I plateau after a while, C) I don’t have the muscle endurance to keep it up for over half an hour, and D) I can’t maintain an exciting mental fantasy while moving my toy. I have had partner sex (vaginal) where they reached my G-spot and did things that felt great for over forty-five minutes straight, and…nothing. After the initial rise in pleasure, my pleasure just plateau-ed until my vaginal opening became irritated from the prolonged movement (this is w/ lubrication) and we had to stop.

But here is the most frustrating piece of advice that I see everywhere, stated either explicitly or understood implicitly: “If you don’t know how to make yourself cum, you can’t expect your partner to know how to do it for you.”

Oh, really? My partners have gotten much closer to making me orgasm than I ever have. It feels good when someone else touches me the way I touch myself. I have gotten close to peaking/orgasm/or something like it three times, and each of those times was when my partner was the one touching me. Two of those times, I hadn’t even told the person how I liked to be touched there.

As you might imagine, after trying all of these things I have started to feel rather hopeless and, I will say it, defective. But I don’t want to give up. Sex and sexual pleasure are important to me—they are parts of my entity w/ which I want to engage. Really, sexual stimulation for me feels good when I have a partner. But great partner sex doesn’t consistently get me close to a peak, a climax, an orgasm, or whatever you want to call it or its cousins. Exploring w/ a partner sounds nice, but I don’t exactly have a throng of partners offering to play w/ my bits until I orgasm. I have tried what the books, websites, sex advice columns, and my friends have told me. And, as you have noticed, I still needed to write you this letter. I feel stuck, disheartened, and defective, and not through any lack of trying. Overall, masturbation hasn’t helped me discover what I like, it has shown me what doesn’t work.

All this masturbation isn’t working. I am no closer to achieving orgasm now than I was three years ago when I started trying to find answers. So...what am I, or anyone else like me, supposed to do now?

I appreciate your time and any advice, suggestions, or anything you can give me about this topic.

Dear A,

Your question is one of the most elaborate ones I've ever received! You have pretty much covered all the current advice that's available. I have to say that some of your responses made me laugh, although I'm clear that this is not a laughing matter to you. There are so many so-called "experts" ready to tell us what female orgasm is about but none of them have worked for you! The one statement that made the most sense to me, you say you cannot do: “Try taking a vacation from your medications that impact your sex drive.”

Those twitches and leg responses sound like your body is trying desperately to respond but it cannot break through the fog of your anti-depressant. From all that others have said, ask your damn doctor to try another brand or lower the dose. I'll include my top essays for you to add to your list, but if nothing else, your lack of orgasm and the med has turned you into an excellent researcher. I am impressed!

Be sure to pay attention to what Dr. Marcia Angell says.

Dr. Betty

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