Great Sex Secret

great

the

S
SEX

ecret

great

the

S
SEX

ecret

what satisfied women and men know
that no one talks about

K i m M a r s h a l l

Copyright © 2007 by Kim Marshall

Cover and internal design © 2007 by Sourcebooks, Inc.

Sourcebooks and the colophon are registered trademarks of Sourcebooks, Inc.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without permission in writing from its publisher, Sourcebooks, Inc.

This book is not intended as a substitute for medical advice from a qualified physician. The intent of this book is to provide accurate general information in regard to the subject matter covered. If medical advice or other expert help is needed, the services of an appropriate medical professional should be sought.

Published by Sourcebooks Casablanca, an imprint of Sourcebooks, Inc.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Marshall, Kim.

The Great Sex Secret : what satisfied women and men know that no one talks about / Kim Marshall.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN-13: 978-1-4022-0810-2

ISBN-10: 1-4022-0810-3

1. Sex. 2. Orgasm. I. Title.

HQ31.M335 2006

613.9'6--dc22

2006021552

Printed and bound in the United States of America DR 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

To Rhoda, with love

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments......................................................ix Introduction ..............................................................1

Chapter 1:

Disappointment in the Land of Eros: Is There a Design Flaw? ..........................................7

Chapter 2:

Wham, Bam, Thank You, Ma’am:

The Long History of One-Sided Sex ......................27

Chapter 3:

No Female Orgasm—But He Tried..........................45

Chapter 4:

Faking It and Dealing with It ..................................63

Chapter 5:

Simultaneous Orgasms: Are They Possible? ..............79

Chapter 6:

Three Approaches to Mutual Satisfaction ..............107

Chapter 7:

What’s Technique Got to Do with It? ....................131

Chapter 8:

Keeping Passion Alive in Long-Term

Relationships........................................................155

Chapter 9:

Finding Our Way to Sexual Happiness ..................177

Bibliography ..........................................................197

Endnotes ................................................................203

About the Author ..................................................213

Acknowledgments

The author wishes to thank an intrepid group of “critical friends” whose comments and support helped move this book from a twelve-page essay to what it is today.

Without their patience, candor, and encouragement the book wouldn’t exist. My heartfelt thanks to Rhoda Schneider, Lillie Marshall, David Marshall, Katherine Marshall, Jon Saphier, Ted Dooley, Andrew Bundy, Karen Hansen, Christina Ward, Carol Schneider, Peg Winship, Rick Weissbourd, Michael Sunog, Lauren Dunbar Keough, Dick Keough, Roland Barth, John Dempsey, Barney Brawer, Jim Cutler, Don Cutler, Jill Kneerim, Paul Zofnass, Cecile Click, my agent Jim Cypher, my editor Deb Werksman, Rebecca Kilbreath and the entire Sourcebooks team, and several others who wish to remain anonymous.

The Great Sex Secret
benefited from the ideas and research in a number of books and articles, all of which are listed in the bibliography. Specific references and quotes are cited in the endnotes, referenced by page numbers and taglines.

Introduction

There are lots of books about sex out there. Why one more? Because there is an important gap in sex research and advice literature: almost no attention has been paid to the ways in which human sexual anatomy makes mutual satisfaction during intercourse a major challenge—or to the work-arounds that some couples have figured out over the years.

Thousands of books, magazines, videos, and websites provide endless ideas about sexual foreplay, positions, and practices, but they tend to avoid the basic structural issues and downplay what would seem to be the ideal finale of sex—orgasms for both partners.

There is an implicit assumption that lovers have that part figured out.

But do they? A widely reported indicator of sexual dissatisfaction—as many as 85 percent of women say they don’t have orgasms during actual intercourse—has been showing up in research for years.
The Great Sex
2

T h e G r e a t S e x S e c r e t
Secret
starts with this statistic and addresses some basic questions:

• Why is sexual intercourse so often unfulfilling for women?

• Was there ever a time when this was not true?

• Is it possible for both partners to have orgasms when they make love?

• Are simultaneous orgasms feasible—or desirable?

• What is “great sex,” anyway?

• What’s technique got to do with it?

• Why do so many lovers have trouble talking about sex?

• What’s going on when seemingly happy couples shy away from sex?

• Can sexual passion be kept alive in long-term love relationships?

• Why has sex-advice literature been so unhelpful?

To answer these questions, we’ll look at an eclectic array of material from contemporary and historical sources, including the experience of couples who have found their way to mutually satisfying lovemaking. The book presents the following argument:

• Penis-in-vagina sexual intercourse almost always produces an orgasm for men but rarely does for women. This is because the location of the clitoris prevents most women from getting sensitive, appropriate, and sustained stimulation during
I n t r o d u c t i o n

3

intercourse. Making love in ways that give both partners full satisfaction is neither easy nor obvious—it doesn’t “come naturally.”

• Historians tell us that through the ages, the default setting for sexual intercourse has been male satisfaction and female frustration. Several cultures exhorted men to give sexual satisfaction to their partners and even told them that their partners wouldn’t get pregnant if they didn’t have orgasms—but specific instructions for stimulating the clitoris during intercourse were not provided.

• A persistent myth has been that penetration alone should produce a female orgasm, prefer-ably at the same moment as the man’s; simultaneous orgasms have often been touted as the ultimate amorous accomplishment (but without specifics on how to make them happen). Despite today’s more sophisticated understanding of human anatomy, this belief persists, and it is one of several reasons that a good number of women fake orgasms during intercourse.

• Lovemaking that is unfulfilling for one partner does not stand the test of time and sows seeds of resentment and unhappiness in a relationship. In recent years, there has been much discussion of

“sexless marriages,” and the finger is usually pointed at exhaustion in two-career households, 4

T h e G r e a t S e x S e c r e t
male anger about women having more power, and inadequate sexual technique. But figuring out ways for busy couples to be less fatigued, psychoanalyz-ing the sources of male-female anger, or using better foreplay, exotic positions, and sex toys do not address the real problem.

• Many lovers who start off with a strong sexual connection find that over the years they get bored with sex, don’t make love as frequently or for as long as they used to, and aren’t “in the mood” at the same moment as their partner. Most sex-advice literature promotes the idea that sexual variety, athleticism, and spontaneity are the ways to keep passion alive in long-term relationships.

• Not true. The key to long-term sexual happiness is having a strong love relationship and finding an effective, mutually satisfactory way to bring both the man and the woman to orgasm while they are together. Three effective approaches have been discovered by couples over the years: first, separate orgasms, with the woman having her climax before or after actual intercourse (first me, then you); second, the woman touching herself during intercourse; and third, the man caressing his partner’s clitoris during intercourse. All three approaches reliably bring the woman to orgasm during lovemaking; the second and third can easily produce
I n t r o d u c t i o n

5

simultaneous or near-simultaneous orgasms. For full details, see Chapter 6, Three Approaches to Mutual Satisfaction.

• These approaches are almost never discussed in the literature or talked about even among close friends.

Laypeople’s reticence is regrettable but understandable; the silence of the “experts” is baffling. It appears that almost all researchers and educators are asking the wrong questions and are stuck in an old paradigm of how sexual intercourse is supposed to work. The result is that very few couples get good advice from the literature—or from their parents, their peers, sex education courses, popular culture, and even (or perhaps especially) from erotica and pornography.

• The only way that some lovers have been able to unlock the ancient mystery is by talking honestly and openly with each other about sex. But most people are shy and have had very little practice at putting their sexual likes and dislikes into words.

When women have less power within romantic relationships, they are even less likely to speak up in bed. Poor communication is a major obstacle to solving the built-in issues involved in mutually satisfying male-female intercourse.

• Because of this, it’s a real challenge for couples to find mutual satisfaction during lovemaking. All 6

T h e G r e a t S e x S e c r e t
too many lovers in each new generation follow the same unsatisfying path as those who came (or did not come) before them. A vast industry of sex material and paraphernalia attempts to alleviate this unhappiness, but very little of it helps.

• Lasting sexual happiness begins when couples confront the mismatches in their sexual anatomies, communicate well, and settle on an approach that reliably gives both partners orgasms when they make love. Making this point and describing the most effective techniques in some detail is what this book is all about.

Chapter One

Disappointment in the

Land of Eros: Is There a

Design Flaw?

Every day we are bombarded with sex. It comes at us in movies and TV shows, billboards and the Internet, sug-gestively clad people on the street, and magazine covers in the supermarket check-out counter assaulting us with headlines like “Ten Ways to Drive Him Wild!” The message is not subtle: every-

one out there is having

great sex, and if you

There is a curious disconnect

aren’t, well, poor you.

between our society’s hype

Even if we could

about “great sex” and recent

block out this onslaught

reports that many couples

of sexual messages, hor-

are unhappy in bed—or not

mones are coursing

having sex at all.

through our bodies, and

most people—especially

adolescents and young adults—are biologically driven to have sexual thoughts with some regularity. John Finley, the late Harvard professor and housemaster, used to 8

T h e G r e a t S e x S e c r e t
joke that the mission of the university was to reduce the amount of time students spend thinking about sex from 85 percent of each day to 55 percent.

Yet for all this ambient sexuality and pressure to join the wonderful sexual party, there are occasional reports from the front lines that things may not be as rosy as we are led to believe:

• In 1985, Ann Landers asked the female readers of her advice column how they felt about making love. She was flooded with more than one hundred thousand letters, with 72 percent of the writers saying they’d much rather be doing something other than having sex. One woman wrote that she found sex with her husband “disgusting and unhygienic,”

but still loved him and enjoyed their life together.

• More than a decade later, a
New York Times Magazine
article took another poke at the myth of sexual bliss. The article quoted a number of experts, including Dr. Judy Kuriansky, the radio call-in host, who said that by far the most common question she hears is “How do I keep the passion in my marriage alive?” Judith Seifer, a therapist and sex-advice columnist, said that “sexual boredom is the most pandemic dysfunction in this country.” And James Petersen, a
Playboy
advice columnist, told of a sign he had spotted on a dirt road in Kentucky:

“Choose your rut carefully—you’re going to be in
D i s a p p o i n t m e n t i n t h e L a n d o f E r o s
9

it for the next eighteen miles.”

• In 2003, an
Atlantic Monthly
article summed up the message of several new books on marriage problems:

“A large number of relatively young and otherwise healthy married people are forgoing sex for long periods of time and…many have given it up altogether.”

• Then, to top it off, an infamous issue of
Newsweek
featured a cover photo of a couple in bed, the man (wearing an undershirt and bathrobe) peering through half-glasses at his laptop, the woman star-ing glassy-eyed at the TV while spooning yogurt into her mouth. The banner headline read, “No Sex, Please, We’re Married: Are Stress, Kids and Work Killing Romance?” The story inside introduced us to a new acronym: DINS—dual-income, no-sex marriages.