The ONE thing stopping you reaching orgasm.

Women are not ‘bad’ at orgasms.

Contrary to popular (convenient?) belief. Also contrary to wide-spread (convenient-because-it’s-difficult-and-aren’t-they-impossible-anyway?) behaviour. Women. Can. Orgasm.

We can reach climax during sex. Frequently. But… we don’t.

Women in heterosexual relationships will reach orgasm only 62% of the time. Women in lesbian relationships have a 75% ‘success’ rate. Men, of course, come out on top (so to speak), and will reach orgasm 85% of the time, in both gay and straight relationships.

This gender imbalance in the bedroom stems from sexism within the relationship, new research from the Queensland School of Psychology has discovered. And ladies, if he’s trying to ‘protect you’ he’s likely not going to ‘satisfy’ you.

via GIPHY

The ream of researchers, lead by Emily Harris, tested a woman’s response to her partner’s sexism. There are (as every woman would have experienced, but might not know the word for) two different types of sexism. ‘Hostile sexism’ is an overt disdain for women. ‘Benevolent sexism’, on the other hand, is the idea that a man’s role is to ‘take care of’ a woman. That women need to be protected by a man.

Think about. This means that if he thinks that he has satisfied his role to protect you in general, it’s now your role to satisfy him in bed. That means more pleasure (hence 85%) for him and less for you. Men with traditional gender roles views are more selfish in the bedroom.

“Benevolent sexism is argued to be a form of legitimising myth, whereby prejudicial attitudes toward women are justified through the guise of care and protection,” the report states. ….(That moment when you’ve always, inherently known something, and someone’s finally been able to articulate it.)

MM Confessions: The weirdest things we’ve heard while between the sheets. Post continues below video.

Harris, and her colleagues, had hypothesised that women who were accepting of, and would participate in, benevolent sexism were more likely to be left unsatisfied in bed.

They were right.

The results showed that benevolent sexism predicts male selfishness (the need to ‘protect’ you, is really all about him). This selfishness predicts his ‘willingness to ask for pleasure’ (and not return it). And these ‘requests’, in turn, lead to more frequent orgasms (for him, not you).

Sure, there are a number of reasons why a woman might not reach orgasm in the bedroom. Distracted. Not relaxed enough. Too stressed. Not enough foreplay. Partner lacking in skills. Too many thoughts – “work presentation tomorrow, deadline looming, clothes at the dry cleaners, and what am I going to wear at the weekend?” All those thoughts and realities of life can detract from the ability to come during sex.

But, with a little less selfishness, and without the inherent sexism involved in a man ‘taking-care-of-a-woman-so-she-should-automatically-take-care-of-him-in-the-bedroom’, we can all be having orgasms at least 85% of the time.

We can also forego the popular (extremely convenient) myth that women can’t have orgasms.

Because. They. Can.

via GIPHY