6 Surprising (And Scientific!) Facts About Orgasms You Might Not Know

Orgasms are the cherry on top of great sex: You don't really need one to make the experience, but they can certainly be a sweet addition when available.

Especially for people with vulvas, you'll often hear people describing orgasm as something that's mysterious, elusive, and even rare—despite the fact that some 95% of women usually orgasm with ease while masturbating. It is more common for women to report struggling with orgasm than it is for men, but it's not about biology. It's about cultural norms and lack of information.

Historically, cultures around the world framed sex exclusively around male pleasure, which is why we today still associate the word "sex" with P-in-V intercourse (despite the fact that penetration alone will not stimulate most vagina owners to orgasm) and why we still associate things that actually get vagina owners off (like oral sex and clitoral stimulation) as "foreplay" instead of as the main act.

A recent study published in the journal Sex Education earlier this year surveyed women before and after taking a class about sex. Some of them took a general course about human sexuality from an anthropological perspective, while others took a course that specifically talked about the orgasm gap, aka the fact that 95% of straight men orgasm every time they have sex, compared to 65% of straight women (and there are some studies that show the gap being even wider). Those women in the latter course reported having more and better orgasms afterward.

We know boys can sometimes experience nocturnal emission, which refers to when they have an orgasm and ejaculate while asleep (hence the term "wet dreams"). But way back in 1953, sex researcher Alfred Kinsey found 37% of women have had an orgasm from a dream by the time they're 45 years old, and recent research shows women are starting to have more and more sexual dreams: One study published in the Psychology & Sexuality journal this year found more than one in five of women's remembered dreams are erotic in nature.

People have reported experiencing orgasms in response to ordinarily nonsexual situations and experiences, such as turbulence, brushing your teeth, ankle stimulation, childbirth, breastfeeding, listening to certain types of music, and many more unusual things. 

"It may be that orgasm is not necessarily a sexual or genital event but may be better considered as a set of neuropsychological processes, with genital orgasms and/or sexual orgasms being some but not all of the kinds of orgasms available to humans," write the researchers behind one recent study1 on the variability of orgasms. "Orgasm may be best considered a variably experienced neuropsychological process associated with diverse forms of stimulation including sights, sounds, tastes, textures, imagery, and/or pain and its relief."

Not to throw shade at men who sleep with women, but men who sleep with women are not very good at recognizing when their partner has had an orgasm. A recent study in the Journal of Sexual Medicine asked over 1,600 married heterosexual couples about their sex lives and found 43% of husbands misperceived how often their wife had an orgasm. That is, they thought their wives were having orgasms a lot more frequently than their wives actually reported having them.

Your cervix, aka the cylinder of tissue connecting the uterus to the vagina, also can be a very sensitive area for people who have them. Enter the cervical orgasm. 

"A cervical orgasm can be achieved when the woman is really aroused," Morse explains. "If she's not sufficiently aroused, it can be painful. This sensation is much different from clitoral stimulation because they are actually stemming from two different nerve systems. These can take more time and practice and will only occur with a dildo, vibrator, or penis. Most women describe them as being more full-bodied." (Here's our guide to having a cervical orgasm, from functional naturopathic medical doctor and mbg Collective member Jolene Brighten, NMD.)