American women don’t cum as often as men. It’s a fact. I learned that first in Becoming Cliterate: Why Orgasm Equality Matters — And How to Get It by Laurie Mintz, PhD, who doesn’t mince words.

“In one recent survey of thousands of women and men, 64 percent of women versus 91 percent of men said they’d had an orgasm during their most recent sexual encounter,” she says on page 2.

Honestly, that number seemed high to me. Sixty percent of women are cumming during sex? Could that translate to six out of 10 times for me? Probably not. Math doesn’t work like that. But in any case, I don’t often cum, and I’ve been investigating why.

This doesn’t mean I don’t like sex. I very much like being stroked and petted, kissed, admired, loved, held, spanked (!), desired, penetrated and all the other physical and emotional interactions that can accompany sex. Still, the big O is rare for me, and I’d like to change that stat.

According to Mintz, I’m not unusual.

“In another recent survey of two thousand straight women: 57 percent said they orgasm most or every time they have sex with a partner, while 95 percent said their partner orgasms most or every time.”

The numbers are even worse when it comes to first-time hook-up sex when only 4 percent of women vs. 55 percent of men report they usually have an orgasm.

The primary reason for the orgasm gap is that we privilege the most common way cis men reach orgasm — penetration — and undervalue the most common way cis women reach orgasm — clitoral stimulation, Mintz says.

That male privilege is so baked into the way we view sex that we literally call vaginal or anal penetration “sex” and clitoral stimulation something else.

When I was a young woman in the 70s, clitoral stimulation was called “foreplay” and penetration was called “sex.” Foreplay was optional. What mattered was sex. Everything led up to the male ejaculation, and once that happened, sex was over.

I clearly remember talking to a cherished boyfriend about this. We were sitting beside a river in my hometown after having sex outdoors — one of my favorite activities. I was feeling blissful and satisfied. He’d cum in my vagina, and afterward I’d brought myself to orgasm with my hand. But he soon cast a pall on my pleasure by telling me that he didn’t approve of me giving myself a hand job.

“It makes me feel inadequate,” he said. And that was the end of that. I put my clitoral stimulation — and my orgasms — away. I surely didn’t want to make my partner feel inadequate. If I did, I’d be failing my job as a woman! Or at least that’s what I thought then, and probably still do, subconsciously. And judging by the number of women who report faking orgasm, so do the vast majority of women.

According to one (admittedly small) study, eighty percent of women fake orgasm during vaginal intercourse at least half the time, and 20 percent of women fake it 90 percent of the time.

The idea that women should be able to cum via penetration alone is still widespread — and not remotely true. In fact, 95% of women require clitoral stimulation to reach orgasm, according to Mintz.

Reading that stat brought to mind a recent sexual encounter. My partner was sitting up on the couch, and I was riding him — sitting on his lap, facing him—when, miracle of miracles, I came! Afterward, he was very curious about what was different this time that brought me over the finish. Was it him sweetly suckling my breasts? Cupping my ass cheeks? Pushing his magical cock deep inside? Nope. What brought me off was my ability to control the rhythm while rubbing my clit against his belly in this particular angle and position.

Thesis confirmed.

Considering the primacy of clitoral stimulation in female orgasm, Mintz makes an interesting suggestion. Try this thought experiment: How about we called clitoral stimulation “sex,” and vaginal penetration and male ejaculation “postplay?” That would change things up a bit.

Mintz is not saying she wants women to have more orgasms than men. She’d just like parity. And if women did cum as often as men, it seems to me that the myriad benefits to their health and well being would ripple out to all of humankind.

With that idea in mind — and a newfound credo that I should cum every time we have sex, too — I proposed a different sexual sequence to my husband. How about we take the time to stimulate my clit and bring me to orgasm in the beginning, before we move on to penetration?

He was happy with that idea, and the first time we tried it, we got great results, i.e., we both came. But the next time I gave the new sequence a go, with our mutual lover (we’re consensually non-monogamous), I felt anxious about taking too long and directed him to go ahead and put it in before I found my bliss.

“Don’t worry about me!” he said afterward. “I’ll tell you if I’m tired or bored.”

But I do worry about him and his pleasure, even more than I worry about my own. (Typical.) As it turns out, anxiety about taking too long to cum is not uncommon in women. And once again, it’s because we privilege the male experience. On average, it takes men 5–10 minutes to achieve orgasm, so that’s what we consider “normal,” yet women take about 20 minutes with a partner to get the same result. (But they can get themselves off in four.)

As that anecdote shows, it’s not ONLY lack of clitoral stimulation that creates the orgasm gap between cis men and cis women. Many other factors come into play, including “poor body image, slut shaming, the idea that women’s role is to please men, and poor sexual communication,” according to Mintz.

But the good news is all those are factors that can be changed. There’s no physical, biological, or irreversible reason that women aren’t having as many orgasms as men. It’s possible to reach orgasm parity if we want to. And I’m currently doing research toward that end.