I change seating positions at least three times before Leah* and Beth* arrive for the interview. Settling into our armchairs, the three of us epitomise our stereotypes. The straight woman who has rarely cum with a man is dressed in jeans and a white t-shirt, long hair in a bun. The masc lesbian who struggles to find the clit sometimes sports short hair, long-sleeved button up, and trademark heart-shaped carabiner. The bisexual woman who prefers sapphic sex has a septum piercing and mullet that could've been cut on Cuba Street. Together, we sound like the beginning of a joke, something we laugh about before getting to the matter at hand: the orgasm gap.
Leah takes a vintage 1983 Playboy magazine out of her tote bag. Sandwiched between full frontal nudity and cigarette ads “for the civilised man”, this edition contains a comprehensive sex survey, one addressing the impact of sexuality on readers’ sex lives – from body count to which sexual activity provides the most intense orgasm. What caught our attention was one finding in particular: women who have sex with other women (like Leah and Beth) tend to achieve orgasm more than women who have sex with men (like me). It’s a phenomenon that’s become known as ‘the orgasm gap’, one backed up by multiple studies and the way you’re nodding along if you fall into the latter camp.
As a heterosexual woman, I identify with the stats, and was curious what secrets I could learn from queer women (who Playboy calls “fluid cunnilinguists”). My research told me that a woman’s orgasm is a more complex beast than men’s point-and-shoots. Context is incredibly important for arousal: the mood needs to be right to achieve the big O. Like DJing in a corporate box or when the lights come on in a club at 3am, the wrong setting can kill the mood. Similarly, I knew this conversation would require a mood-setting environment that only one lamp-lit Ōtepoti bar could provide: Woof!. I texted my boyfriend “gay women are going to teach me how to cum” on my way to the interview.
Once we’ve ordered our drinks, we begin with introductions. It’s a running joke within Leah’s circle that her sexuality announces itself before she does; she tells us she’s been an out and proud lesbian since the age of 16 when she tried kissing a boy and hated it. To her right, Beth is in her second-year of university and in her first relationship with a woman. Despite what her Wellington crowd tells her, she’s bisexual, not lesbian (“bi erasure!” shouts Leah) and had plenty of sex with men in first-year to prove it. Neither can imagine not liking women, and eyes turn to me as I shrug.
Sex is often defined as intercourse. But according to Leah, this is where you’re going wrong. At St Margaret’s College in her first year at university, she would often be asked how lesbians have sex, as others struggled to conceive of sex outside of the one act: a penis in a vagina. It’s important as a starting point to broaden the definition of sex. For Leah, it’s “two people coming together with the intent of pleasure” where orgasm is not the goal, but a “happy byproduct”.
There tends to be a social script when it comes to sex between a man and a woman. As Leah points out, anything other than intercourse falls under the umbrella of “foreplay”, suggesting that all that comes beforehand is lesser – the opening act – and sex is finished once the man is. It’s a script that prioritises men’s pleasure over women’s, relegating the clitoris to the back bench. There’s a Friends scene that demonstrates what we’ll call the ‘heteronormative divide’ well. The boys in the group describe kissing as the stand-up comedian you have to sit through at a concert before Pink Floyd comes out; while enjoyable, it’s not why you bought the ticket. The girls reply, “A word of advice: bring back the comedian. Otherwise, next time you’re gonna find yourself sitting at home, listening to that album alone.”
The pitfalls of heterosexual sex is something both women had had some experience with. When Beth moved to Dunedin for university, she decided she was “not going to be gay for a bit”. She adopted the Fleabag protagonist’s attitude to sex, using men for her own pleasure, deciding they were done when she’d finished. Giving straight men a taste of their own medicine, if you will. “I felt so powerful,” she says, while admitting it to be a validation-seeking exercise. But with her girlfriend, it’s different. “With women it’s a partnership, less like you’re serving them,” she explains.
Despite never having had sex with a man, Leah has had one experience that felt pretty close to it. Last year, she slept with a girl who’d only ever had sex with men. Head cocked to the side, she describes how it felt bizarrely infused with heterosexuality. From the roles played to the phrases used, it felt “manufactured and performative”. Her eyebrows come together. “I just remember feeling sad about the whole thing,” she says. “Being queer to me is to have a rule book and throw it out. It’s so liberating to exist without boundaries.”
Queer women bow to the altar of communication. To start, there are a variety of short-cut labels within the queer community like ‘pillow princess’, originating from lesbians who just like receiving pleasure. “It’s well understood in lesbianism,” Leah explains. “But now it has a negative connotation in the mainstream.” The inverse of PPs are ‘touch-me-nots’ who prefer to give. It’s something Leah identifies with, saying that she could quite happily not have an orgasm in her sex life whilst pleasuring her sexual partners. “Imagine trying to explain that to the heterosexual worldview,” she laughs.
One of the biggest obstacles to communication can be ego. Sex is incredibly vulnerable, and you want to feel like you’re doing a good job – especially when dealing with the elusive clitoris. Playboy claimed that part of what makes lesbians “technically proficient lovers” is something called ‘intragender empathy’ – when a woman knows what feels good to another woman. While Leah thinks there’s a certain level of “homefield advantage”, the key thing is – again – communication (like not stopping when a girl says “don’t stop”). Leah levels her eyes at me, saying, “Look, you can quote me on this.” I dutifully poise my fingers to type. “I’ve been out of the closet for eight years now, I have my own vagina, and sometimes I struggle to find the clit. The best thing you can do is communicate.”
Once ego has been left at the door, a whole world of pleasure is possible. Leah gushes that she’s two weeks into dating someone new and the sex is great. Her partner makes her feel wanted and desired in a manner that feels personal. She’ll butter Leah up with back massages, then feel up her biceps (which she works hard to maintain), playing with her hair, kissing her neck and telling her she smells good. Smiling, Leah says, “It’s making someone feel like the sexiest, most desirable person alive.” It’s a refreshing change from preferring either ass or tits.
I ask them how else heterosexual women might achieve orgasm with their partners. The answer: vibrators. The Satisfyer Pro, specifically. At this point in the conversation, the level has dropped in our drinks and we’ve stopped preempting anecdotes from our sex lives with “TMI, but…”. Like any good foreplay, we’ve warmed up to the juicy part. Sex toys can often be treated as the enemy by men, but Leah and Beth urge everyone to see them as allies. “If it’s going to make you feel way better, what a dick move not to use it,” says Leah. “My forearm gets tired, my jaw gets tired.” Beth nods, adding, “I can’t do as good a job as a vibrator,” and they both laugh imagining a vibrating finger or tongue.
If Leah had one tip, it would be that “anyone can get more creative in the bedroom.” There’s no “right way”, just better ways to achieve orgasm. She herself can struggle to cum, saying, “When you’re a queer woman who finds it hard to orgasm, it can make you feel quite broken.” Beth agrees that sometimes it just can’t happen, and that’s okay. While not always the goal, one way that Leah found works for her is masturbating with her partner. “Straight men, trust me on this one. It’s hot when you’re masturbating and there’s someone involved. If your girl has a vibrator, let her use it and watch.” For Beth, it’s learning how to take turns and getting hit from the back with a strap-on while using a vibrator on herself: “Shit’s fire.” Leah finger snaps.
Drinks finished and sexual gaps bridged, we wrap up the interview there. Mulling over the sapphic words of wisdom and flicking through Playboy over the following days, I find a Playmate’s quote that encapsulates the most important quality in a lover: “A genuine interest in the object of his desire. Which is to say, tenderness and affection and a sense of pacing, instead of the wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am school of sexual encounter.” Don’t get it wrong, orgasm-less sex is still enjoyable between two (or more) consenting partners. But if you want to get off, consider dimming the lights, throwing out the rule book, and tuning into what feels good for you.
*Names changed.