Episode 369: All About Orgasms
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This is the Sex and Psychology Podcast, the sex ed you never got in school and won't get anywhere else. I am your host, Dr. Justin Leigh Miller. I am a social psychologist and research fellow at the Kinsey Institute and author of the book, Tell Me What You Want, The Science of Sexual Desire and How It Can Help You Improve Your Sex Life. Today's show is going to be all about orgasms. We're going to dive into a lot of interesting questions on this topic.

For example, we often hear that it's our partner's job to give us an orgasm. But is it really their responsibility? Are orgasms really something that other people give us? Likewise, we're going to dive into fake orgasms and the question of when it is and isn't okay to pretend to climax. We'll also delve into the subject of orgasm equity.

You know, we hear a lot about the importance of closing the orgasm gap, but what does closing it actually look like? Does everyone have to have an orgasm every single time they have sex in order for us to achieve true equity? We'll also explore strategies for having more orgasms if this is something that you struggle with, as well as answer the question of whether you can learn to become multiply orgasmic, or if some people are just more naturally inclined toward it.

My guest today is Dr. Candice Nicole Hargens, an award-winning associate professor at Emory University's Rollins School of Public Health, where she studies sexual wellness and liberation. With over 70 published articles, Dr. Hargens has made substantial contributions to the field. Her work has also been featured widely in the popular media. Dr. Hargens' debut book, titled Good Sex, is now in print. This is going to be another fascinating and very practical conversation.

Stick around and we're going to jump in right after the break. Do you ever find yourself dreaming about a career where you get to talk about sex and psychology all day long? What if I told you there's a place that can connect you with world-class experts and has a large thriving community? Sexual Health Alliance does just that. Sexual Health Alliance helps you to build the career of your dreams and is at the forefront of sexuality education. Students come from all parts of the world and from all types of backgrounds.

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Thank you for having me again. It's so good to be here with you. Well, it's a pleasure to have you here. I'm so excited that your new book, Good Sex, is finally out. I had you on the show a few months ago where we teased it a little bit. So I wanted to welcome you back so that we could dive deeper into it because there's so much great information in it.

So one of the topics we didn't have time to get into last time was the topic of orgasm, which you have a whole chapter about. And it encourages us to think differently about orgasms. So one of the subjects you discuss is this idea of who is responsible for an orgasm.

Is it our own responsibility? Is it our partner's? Is it shared? You know, we often hear about this idea that someone, usually a man, is quote-unquote giving their partner an orgasm, which suggests that a lot of people think that they are entirely responsible for their partner's orgasm. So how should we think about this instead? Who's responsible for your orgasms?

Yes. So you can be personally responsible for your orgasm or you can allow it to be a shared responsibility, but no one is ever exclusively responsible for your orgasm. And that way, if you want to make it a partner project, some people like team science. If you want it to be all on your plate, either way, you have some agency in how it happens.

Yeah, I love that. And I like this idea of thinking about orgasms as a team project, right? As opposed to it's something that you're going to give your partner. You know, I think this idea that you're giving your partner an orgasm is problematic on a lot of levels because it creates a lot of pressure and anxiety and stress.

Also, it creates these feelings of failure when your partner doesn't have an orgasm. And so it can ultimately be kind of this self-defeating thing. So stop thinking about you as being totally responsible for your partner's orgasms, right? We all have a role to play in our own orgasms and we can also make it a team project. Absolutely. And I think the other side of it is the fact that we have a gender disparity in that messaging on Facebook.

Like for many women, we don't hear it's our responsibility to make sure our partner orgasms. But we do hear that the sex act isn't over until our partner makes himself orgasm. And so there's some complication in how we've been talking about it. And we could all just be on the same side and like, we'll help each other out if, you know, that's the way we want to look at it.

Yeah, and we'll definitely get into the gendered aspect of this a little bit more as we go along. But something else that people get wrong about orgasms is this idea that they're supposed to be simultaneous.

So in the popular media and in porn, it often seems to be the case that everybody's orgasming at the exact same time, which probably feeds into this expectation that this is how it's supposed to happen. But this doesn't really reflect reality, right? So tell us a little bit about that and what media portrayals of orgasm get wrong.

This is what I hate about media. And I love watching TV and movies and such, right? Like, I enjoy a good binge watch session. But in 30 seconds or less, from the moment you first see each other and kiss and then push your partner up against the wall, together, you simultaneously have the best possible orgasm the first time you meet each other. It's just so...

It's so mythical. And I think it sets people up, especially when you're making your sexual debut and thinking about sex earlier on in your life with little experience for this idea that it's going to happen together. And if it doesn't, you're both inadequate or something's wrong with the sex. Something's wrong with one or the other.

More often than not, and your research has spoken to some of this as well, people have sequential orgasms or one person has an orgasm or one person doesn't have an orgasm. Depending on whether or not the unit are okay with that, all of the options are fine.

Yeah, there are so many different patterns in which orgasms can occur in real life. And, you know, what you're seeing in the media is not really a good representation of that. And I know that people who are listeners of this show are probably pretty well aware of that fact. But it's still important to talk about because, you know, if you think about younger adults who are

navigating sex for the first time and they didn't get adequate sex education or get any sex education at all, where did they learn about sex and what are their expectations and ideas for how the sex act is supposed to go? Well, in a lot of cases, it's going to come from media and porn. And so, you know, when we have these representations that just don't give people realistic ideas or expectancies about how the sex act goes,

That's where it starts to become problematic because all too often media and porn become the default ways that people learn about sex today because they're just not getting sex at anywhere else. And so you get this idea that people aren't feeling satisfied with the sexual experience because it doesn't live up to this media portrayal when in fact they enjoyed themselves, but they just have an expectation that is outsized for sure.

Yeah, those orgasm expectations can be problematic. So you talk a little bit about fake orgasms in your book. So I wanted to touch on that here. Research finds that over half of women and about one quarter of men say that they've faked an orgasm before. And people's reasons for faking it are many and varied.

And I know there are a lot of people who think that no one should ever fake an orgasm and that it's just not a good thing to do. And I get how fake orgasms can be problematic under certain circumstances, such as when someone routinely fakes orgasms with their partner because the sex isn't meeting their needs. And then it creates this ongoing pattern of unsatisfying and not pleasurable sex.

But there can be lots of different reasons why people fake it sometimes. And ideally, you know, it'd be great if no one ever felt like they had to fake it. But tell us a little bit about your thoughts on fake orgasms. So I asked a bunch of people about this, just curious about why we fake orgasms. And a lot of people came up with the one you probably hear most often, that they just wanted it to be over. They just wanted it to end and they felt like the wave worked.

them to signal that it was ending was that, you know, because of the orgasm inherited, once someone orgasms, we have done our job and we have finished and it's over.

On the other side, some people believe in fake it till you make it. And they feel like the sex is better when they fake it orgasm. So even if they never get to orgasm, it increases their pleasure to make the gestures or the sounds of an orgasm. And so they're pleasure enhancing in their orgasm faking. And they're satisfying perhaps a partner's need to feel like they contributed to an orgasm. So...

There are tons of reasons. Some people do it because they want their partner to feel good, have higher sexual self-esteem. And so they take the orgasm because they believe that their partner's ego or self-esteem is some way tied to their orgasm output or the orgasm experience. So on the other side of it, they don't want to hurt their partner's feelings. So some people want to improve their partner's mood or self-esteem. And some people, like at the baseline, they don't want to bring it down. So

So there are a number of reasons why. And I've been there before. I know plenty of people who have, and you would like to eventually get to a place where you evolve out of it. So younger me would have a, whereas older me would be like, hey, let's just shift things up or, you know, this won't be the time and that's okay with me. And I think a lot of people, even if they believe in faking it till they make it, maybe they can get to a place where they trust that they could say it wasn't orgasmic if they needed to or wanted to.

Yeah. And so what you described there tells us that this phenomenon of faking orgasms is a highly complex one. And I think when we try to give these blanket messages or statements and say, no, you should never fake an orgasm, that's not really helpful because...

There can be ultimately, as you described, lots of different reasons why people might fake it. And sometimes they're doing it for their own benefit because it is enhancing sex or making it more pleasurable for them. And so who are we to say you shouldn't fake orgasms if this is something that is good for you in terms of your own pleasure? Or if you're doing it because you want to boost your partner's sexual self-esteem or confidence, or if maybe you're just really tired and you still enjoy the sex, but you just want it to be over so you can go to sleep, right?

there can be a lot of reasons why people do it that I think can be acceptable. So ultimately, the question of whether you should or shouldn't fake orgasms, I think really depends on your reasons for doing it in the first place. And in cases where you're constantly faking it because you are not having satisfying sex at all, and

you are doing that in lieu of communicating with your partner about what it is that you need, that's a case where you'd probably want to revisit those motivations and say, maybe we should work on trying to make the sex better meet my needs as opposed to me feeling like I have to continually fake it. And, you know, the other problem in situations like that is that once you start faking it, it can become very difficult to stop because then you have to tell your partner that you've never actually had an orgasm with them. And then that can become a real problem

Let's just say difficult topic of discussion. Yeah, because now you have a lack of transparency or dishonesty in the relationship. And that can be something that is related to more than just your sexual experiences. People experience that distrust across the board.

Yeah, and you don't want to be in a situation where then your partner going forward is constantly questioning every time you have an orgasm, whether it's a real one or a fake one, right? So you can see how it can be a slippery slope and can sometimes lead to bigger problems in the relationship. So let's talk about the definition of orgasm for a minute.

In your book, you mention a very old definition from the 1600s defining orgasm as the acme of venereal excitement, which just sounds weird. It kind of sounds like an STD almost. Right. Venereal excitement. I don't know. It's a very coded, strange way of describing an orgasm. But today, scientifically, how is orgasm defined?

I think it's being shaped by science, but I don't think it's finalized, if that makes sense. So people talk about genital, pelvic, lower contraction that produce pleasurable sensations sometimes. It's pleasurable sometimes. It's not after a certain amount of physical arousal and stimulation.

And it tends to feel like a release of tension in the body or release of sexual tension after arousal. Like it's so nuanced for everyone. So there might be shaking or there might be like a flow feeling or a warm feeling. There's so many different coded ways of explaining orgasm that researchers have found that sometimes it can be hard to capture a definition. That's why I like to ask people like,

When you say orgasm, what did it feel like to you? So it could be fireworks to someone else. It could be a lava flow to somebody else. Yeah. You know, asking for the definition of orgasm is something that might strike some people as silly because they might think, well, everybody knows what an orgasm is, right? But not necessarily, you know, and different people might even be labeling quite different things as orgasm.

So, for example, I had Dr. Nicole Prowsey on the show a while back, and she's done a lot of fascinating research on the science of orgasms. And so she has developed this specialized butt plug that measures anal contractions. And in her view, it's kind of like the telltale sign of whether somebody is having an orgasm.

because anal contractions happen and this is a gender neutral way of assessing them in a lab setting. And something interesting that she's found is that for 100% of the men who have come into her lab and have this butt plug in, you know, they,

stimulate themselves to the point of orgasm. And then they also have a button to hit when they have an orgasm. And it's to see whether their psychological experience and timing of orgasm lines up with when they're having the genital contractions. And what she finds is, like I said, for 100% of the men, their button presses and the butt plug anal contractions that are being recorded line up perfectly.

Now, for women, on the other hand, only about 50% of the women, when they press the button, have the anal contractions present. And I find that to be really fascinating because it suggests that for women in particular, many of them might be labeling something other than genital contractions as orgasm. And so, for example, that might be labeling other stages of the arousal process. It might be labeling...

feelings of physical pleasure, some other type of sensation. And so again, this just gets to the point, the fact that different people might be defining and experiencing orgasm in just very, very different ways.

And it's interesting that there is a difference in sex or gender. I'm not sure which one. And that because he might as well we're talking about and he was like, there are orgasms and then there's ejaculation and those are different. And so were the men talking about the fact that they ejaculate or was it orgasmic? You know, he was like, I can ejaculate and not have an orgasm.

That's true. So how do we think about it? Yes, it's so true. And once you start getting into this question, you start to see how complex it is. And especially that question of ejaculation and orgasm. You can orgasm without ejaculating. You can ejaculate without having an orgasm. And so, again, lots of people assume that those things always go together, but they don't always. So talking about...

And orgasms and actually studying them scientifically is harder than you might think because you start getting into all of this complexity. And I love that. Like, that's the part about it that I love the most, the complexity and thinking about those little nuances and definition or even psychophysiological shifts. Like, so I was cool. It was cool that you shared that with me. Now I have to go find a paper.

Yeah, the messiness of sex research is one of the things that makes it fun. Sex research is messy just like sex is messy in real life. So let's talk about the orgasm gap for a moment. Now, you make a really interesting point in your book about what it means or what it might look like to have orgasmic equity. So we all know that on average, heterosexual women are orgasming in a smaller number of their sexual encounters compared to heterosexual men.

But we also know that a much larger number of women, as compared to men, are multi-orgasmic.

And so you raise the very provocative question of whether these things balance each other out. So if one partner orgasms in almost every sexual encounter, but they're only having one orgasm each time, whereas the other partner only orgasms half of the time, but they're experiencing two or maybe more orgasms every time, is that orgasmic equity? You know, they're having the same number of orgasms, just in different ways. So yeah, why?

What do you make of that? And how do you define it? I want to know what you make of it because to me, it is equity. Like for teen multi, like I'm totally cool with knowing that sometimes it'll be three, sometimes it'll be one, sometimes it'll be two. That feels equitable to me. And so I think it depends on the person. But I'm curious about what you thought when you read that. I was wondering how people would respond to that.

Yeah, I love that you had that in the book because it's a question I had not really thought about before. And your work is some of the work I've cited around or just effectively thought about. Well, so, you know, when people talk about the orgasm gap, the way a lot of people discuss it is it seems like the goal is like everybody should be orgasming in every sexual encounter. And what equity would be would be that

Everybody just has orgasms at the same percentage of the time. But that's just one definition or way of thinking about equity. And so I think what you presented is a very different view that maybe equity isn't about everybody having an orgasm in every single sexual encounter. Maybe it's about

multi-orgasmic capacity and how we factor that into all of this. And so should we look at total number of orgasms that people have as opposed to are they having it in every single sexual encounter or situation? And so, yeah, it's a different way of thinking about it. And I think when we talk about closing the orgasm gap, we need to think about questions like this, like what does orgasmic equity actually look like? And yeah, so I love that you raised this question.

And I'm curious about, is it that you have orgasms when you want to have orgasms? That's a question I've explored as opposed to do you have an orgasm every time? Maybe you don't want it to be orgasmic. Maybe you want to edge or delay the experience. And so it's like, I don't want to have an orgasm this time. I just want to kind of be in that pleasure arousal state. And that's okay. And I think sometimes if you make it more about equality, like a one-to-one, it becomes too transactional. And so I like the...

more expansive idea of equity and orgasmic equity in particular.

Yeah, I don't like the idea of, you know, trying to keep score when it comes to orgasm, because I don't think that that's going to lay the groundwork for a healthy and satisfying long-term relationship. Because when you're always thinking about it through that sort of lens, it can start to lead to resentment and these other kinds of issues that can make it where orgasm is no longer teamwork. You know, we started our conversation by talking about how that's

a different way of thinking about orgasms is something you do together as a team. And if you're starting to keep score here and starting to develop resentment for your partner because they had an orgasm, but you didn't, that's not going to be a very healthy dynamic. Yeah. So there are a lot of people who would like to be having more orgasms. And in your book, you talk about some strategies for working on orgasms if they're an issue in your life. So can you walk us through that? You know, what are some strategies for expanding your orgasmic options?

Yeah. As you know, there are relationship factors that contribute to having or not having orgasm. There are individual, biological, social, so many different layers. And if we start to consider whatever the plane is or the level is that you're maybe experiencing the difficulty or the thing that prevents you from orgasming the way you want, when you want,

That would determine the intervention. So in the book, I talk about a couple where the woman in the couple is a heterosexual couple in this case was multi-orgasmic at one stage in their relationship. And then following having kids, it was like something kind of shut off in her body. And the man in this case was

was singularly orgasmic, but pretty consistently throughout their relationship, but very invested in the multi-orgasm. And what we find through the therapy is that he was really, and not even in a like,

resentful way. He was like in awe of his wife's capacity to be multi-orgasmic and it felt amazing to him and maybe felt some like hopefulness for himself. And so we explored that so that the woman wasn't just the identified client or the person who's the problem. Like, hey, let's work on the possibility of you being multi-orgasmic as the person who has had singular orgasms and let's work on the possibility of you

retrieving your multi-orgasm if you would like or being okay with a variety of types of orgasms. So I think theirs was a family system type of dynamic where having kids changes the orientation of some of your organs. It changes your mood state, your vigilance to how the kids are doing. And for her, using Shibari was one strategy where she was tied up and

It felt like the responsibility of parenting was taken off the plate and that allowed her to kind of be more embodied. And I know some of Lori Bartle's work talks about mindfulness and being back in your body to have better sexual satisfaction, pleasure, and even orgasm. And so for this person in particular, that was the strategy that a couple used. And the other person in the couple looked into like how to use that

pacing and edging and, you know, genital contraction, basically paying better attention to his body's cues when he was about to orgasm so that he could potentially have an experience with multi-orgasm, which he did once and it may never happen again, but it felt really rewarding. So being very embodied, you know, is something that can

help in cases where the ability to orgasm is lost or it just starts to become more difficult. One of the biggest things that gets in the way of people having an orgasm is that they get too in their head or they're just super distracted by something else or they're stressed out or burned out. And so learning how to be in the moment, be present and focusing on those physical sensations can be really useful.

And since you brought up multiple orgasms, I was going to ask, you know, can you learn to be multiply orgasmic? Or is this something where some people just seem to be naturally more inclined to it than others? I think the research suggests that some people are predisposed to it.

But I feel like there are also a lot of people who haven't tried because they think it's off the table for them. And so you don't even know about your predisposition, especially people who are men, because they are told, OK, one and done. That's it. You know, refractory period is what it is.

And for some people, it's like, oh, I've never given myself the juice to explore that possibility. And so you get to see. And I love that about sex. Like you get to try and see. And if it's not, it's totally fine. And if it is, you learn something new about your body.

Yeah, I think that's so true that a lot of people might be capable of multiple orgasms, but they just don't know it because they've never tried it. And maybe they've never tried it because they've only ever heard like, well, let's say you're a man and you've only ever heard of women being multi-orgasmic or anything.

you know, all the porn that you've seen, you've only ever seen and have one orgasm. And so, yeah, again, you won't know unless you try. And there are lots of different things you can try if you want to learn to become multi-orgasmic. There are lots of different books and other things that are out there. For example, I have a book on my shelf behind me called Any Man Can, and it's from the

1980s and it talks about different techniques for how you can learn to become multi-orgasmic. And I believe it was written by psychologists. And so there is some research basis to it. But yeah, there are different things that you can try and practice. Sometimes also sex toys can help with it in terms of

maintaining higher arousal because one of the things that makes it difficult sometimes to have multiple orgasms is that, you know, once you have that first orgasm, you start to enter the resolution phase where you start to have decreased blood flow or more blood flowing out of the genital area. And so when you start to lose arousal, it becomes harder to

have a second orgasm. But if there are things you can do to maintain a higher level of arousal, then having that next orgasm can be a lot easier. So using toys, having some novelty. There's also some research finding that use of erectile dysfunction drugs like Viagra and Cialis are also linked to increased multi-orgasmic capacity in men because they help to retain that blood flow into the penis. And so it makes it easier to have a second orgasm. So lots of different things people can potentially try.

Okay, see, that's what I didn't know about the medicine. Yep, learn something new every day when it comes to sex. So is there anything else that you want people to know on the subject of orgasms or other ways that you want people to think differently about orgasms going forward?

Yeah, a lot of the things that I write in the book are about enriching your sexual self-awareness, so knowing what you want, what you're capable of, and then, of course, how to communicate it or practice the strategies that help you get that thing. And so just giving yourself a minute to be reflective on what is the quality of your orgasms? Do you orgasm as much as you want to? Do you find that you're curious about other ways or experiences with orgasm?

And if so, just do a little digging. Like I love to just invite people to learn more about the things that that spark their interest sexually. Because even if you might find like we were just describing that you're not a multiple orgasmic person, but you learn something about your body that increases your pleasure, there's still a great benefit there.

Yeah, always keep exploring your body because you can uncover new sources of pleasure and new ways to enjoy yourself sexually. So thank you so much for sharing all this information with us, Candice. I really look forward to continuing our conversation in the next episode and diving into the science of sexual pleasure and satisfaction. Can you please tell my listeners where they can go to learn more about you and your work and get a copy of your new book, Good Sex?

You can find the book everywhere books are sold. It's on pre-order now, but it will be on sale probably by the time this episode comes out at Barnes and Nobles, on Amazon. My book partner, Karis Books, a indie store here in the Atlanta area. They sell it online. And you can find me at drkandisonpole.com or on Instagram, threads, Facebook at Dr. Candice Nicole.

Well, we'll be sure to include links to your book and your social media accounts in the show notes. Thank you again so much for your time. I really appreciate having you here. Thank you for listening. To keep up with new episodes of this podcast, visit my website, sexandpsychology at sexandpsychology.com or subscribe on your favorite platform where I hope you'll take a moment to rate and review the show. If you listen on Apple Podcasts, please consider becoming a Sex and Psychology Premium subscriber to enjoy ad-free listening for just $3.99 a month.

You can also follow me on social media for daily sex research updates. I'm on Blue Sky and X at Justin Laymiller and Instagram at Justin J. Laymiller. Also, be sure to check out my book, Tell Me What You Want. Thanks again for listening. Until next time.