Photo by Flickr user Dru Bloomfield. Used under a Creative Commons license.

So over at Em & Lo's site a woman wrote for advice saying

Dear Em & Lo,

I’m an 18-year-old girl/woman and I want to be more sexually active, but every time I have sex with my boyfriend I orgasm super quickly (like in less than 5 minutes) and it feels weird to keep going. What should I do? I really want to keep up with my boyfriend but he says he could go for hours but I can only last for minutes.

– Early Bird

She said it here

First of all, if by “sex” Early Bird means “intercourse” then I don’t think five minutes before she has an orgasm is all that short a time. Taking admittedly great liberties with averages, average hetero intercourse lasts a little more than five minutes, and 25% of women say they always have (some kind of) orgasms from intercourse (and more say they usually or often do.) If Early Bird's partner could only go two minutes instead of hours then ta-da, suddenly she'd suddenly be “frigid!”

That said…

I think the feeling of weirdness or discomfort with continued sex after orgasm is more common than a lot of women let on. Although it’s commonly considered a “male” thing, plenty of women are “one and done” when it comes to orgasms. And of those I’d say while about half are ready to continue if their partner wants to, quite a few others are ready shift gears and start talking about their day, to go to sleep, to start thinking about breakfast, and so on.

And, again while it’s usually called a “male” attribute, a subset of those women also come both easily and early. Which, if their partners are still in the mood, can leave them feeling a little hung out to try. Even though that hung-out-to-dry feeling is typically considered a “female” attribute.

Call me a rebel here but I think it’s even less likely that women this happens to are going to disclose being “premature ejaculators” than men are. First because it’s a little embarrassing. Second because a) “everybody knows” orgasms are hard for women, b) “everybody knows” women can always have another orgasm (in contradiction to item #1), and c) “everybody knows” sex for women is about “feeling close” rather than horny so continuing sex after orgasm without feeling weird is supposed to be perfectly “natural.”

This is why I’m so happy Early Bird has piped up about her experience. She’s not alone! It can be a problem! It doesn’t feel lucky, either for her or her partners, or for women like her or their partners.

The good news is that while the underlying mechanisms are probably a little different, some of the techniques men are taught to deal with premature orgasms might work for you. And no, I don’t mean cliches like thinking of baseball statistics or imagining out-of-shape in-laws naked. I mean the real things like communication, acknowledgement, pacing, practicing “edging” by yourself and then later with a partner, and (radical though it might sound) doing “foreplay” to get him up to speed.

Which leads me to return to my first thought: how many more women would find themselves in Early Bird’s shoes if more men learned how to last more than 3-5 minutes? I say this not to knock men (at all) but to say it’s funny how we assume that women’s orgasms are “hard” just because they don’t tend happen as quickly as their male partners. I mean, consider if Early Bird’s partner was more quick on the trigger she might still think she had “problems” reaching orgasm during sex!

This is not an accusation.  This is not an imprecation.  This is not a blinding insight. This may be obvious to everyone else on the planet.  This is not an attempt at moral, spiritual, gender, cultural equivalence.  I don't even think it's profound.  This is a personal insight strong enough to prompt me out of my blogging somnolence.

In interpersonal, cultural, and especially geographic conflicts imposed sex and withheld food are used as both strategic and tactical weapons.  Typically against civilians.  By aggressors and too often even by defenders!

It's not always food.  It's not always sex.  But it's both often enough to say no, seriously, food and sex ought to be off limits.

Call this post repeating the obvious for no reason other than it probably can't be said enough.