Sexual pleasure can significantly increase relationship satisfaction and wellness. Yet, a 2015 online survey of more than 1000 women using the “Healthy Women / Lippe Taylor Women’s Health Behavior Index” confirmed ongoing concerns about the female sexual experience.

According to survey results, 60% of women want more sex, although only 27% of women orgasm with every intercourse engagement—the rate increases to 34% with oral sex. Overall, women’s orgasm rate is 69%, compared to 95% for men. Sadly, the lack of sexual satisfaction is a cultural norm embedded within a system that emphasizes a particular power structure that only entitles men to orgasm.

The female orgasm is optional even though the female body is particularly designed for orgasm, as the clitoris has no other function. Women have fought robustly to remove power structures that restrict success. Yet, research reveals that women compromise their body autonomy to fulfill the sexual “needs” of their partners, including agreeing to ‘threesomes,’ watching pornography at the partner’s request, and performing as bisexual at parties.

Women also rationalize coercive sexual experiences. However, normalizing sex without orgasm is the most common compromise of body autonomy. The single-orgasm sexual experience, in which only the male has an orgasm, is oppressive.