Hot, Holy & Humorous

Does Your Husband Prioritize Your Orgasm?

Now and then, I get a question that goes something like this:

My husband always climaxes during sex, but I often don’t. I leave feeling unsatisfied and even frustrated that I didn’t get to have my orgasm, when he always gets to have his. He wishes I could get there too, but doesn’t really put in the effort to get me there.

Sometimes there’s a caveat, like: I take a long time to reach orgasm, so I know it’s hard for him to keep going.

Regardless, this inquiry comes up often enough that I can say without doubt: Some husbands don’t prioritize their wife’s orgasm nearly enough.

Why doesn’t he prioritize her orgasm?

Sure, a husband could be a selfish lover who goes after his own satisfaction without taking full consideration of his wife’s sexual desires. But oftentimes, it’s something else.

Plenty of men don’t really understand how a woman’s arousal and orgasm work.

They haven’t been taught what it’s like for a woman. And without more to go on, they figure your orgasm should work like theirs. Meaning you get aroused, you have sex, you climax, and that’s that. It’s a fairly straightforward.

If your husband was exposed to pornography, or simply paid attention to movie and TV sex scenes, he may have also swallowed the ideas that a woman can be ready for intercourse quickly, that penetration will bring her to climax, and that if she isn’t orgasming, it’s a problem with her. Erroneous information, of course, but if this is what you’ve seen/heard all your life, it’s confusing when your wife doesn’t behave like that in bed.

If your husband doesn’t seem to understand how your arousal and climax work, ask if he’d be willing to listen to a podcast with you. It’s less than 26 minutes long, and if you use a podcast app and change the settings, you can listen to it even faster. (I often put mine on 1.2x speed.) Meaning it’s not much to ask! But it might help for your husband to hear four seasoned wives talking about how women’s sexual response works.

You can also get my book, Pillow Talk: 40 Conversations About Sex for Married Couples, which has several chapters in which you can explain what things are like for you and listen to what it’s like for him. By learning more about each other, without criticism or judgment, you can develop a healthier view of what you should be pursuing together for your sexual intimacy. Which involves climax.

But there could be another good reason.

Women aren’t the only ones taught that sex is for him.

One of the biggest myths perpetuated both in secular and religious culture is that sex is primary for the husband. (Listen to Lies Woman Believe episode.) Except that’s not at all what God said. The passage often used to urge wives to have more sex with their husband, 1 Corinthians 7:3-5, doesn’t say, “Wives, give it up for your husband, whether you wanna or not.”

Although the passage talks about an obligation to have sex in marriage, that’s not the point! Paul’s main point is that there must be mutuality in the marriage bed! And if anything, the verse begins with her “marital rights,” not his: “The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband.”

Yet men have heard this passage and others used—as well as common advice given here, there, and everywhere—to say that the husband’s part is needing sex and the wife’s part is owing her husband sex. It’s total malarkey, but if this is the bad teaching your husband received, he may have come into marriage not expecting you to enjoy it as much as he does or believing your climax doesn’t matter as much as his.

Stinks, I know. But when we realize that our husbands also received wrong messages, we can see that it’s not malice that keeps him from aiming for your orgasm. He simply needs to learn the truth about what God desires for both of you in your marriage—a sizzling, satisfying sex life.

But how can you actually address the issue with him?

In addition to the ideas above, I suggest having a conversation away from the bedroom. Tell him what you desire and why. Explain to him how your body works. And ask how he would feel if he was super turned on but didn’t get his climax. I suspect he wouldn’t like that, and neither do you.

Now, not every wife feels the need to climax every time. But if climax isn’t a regular part of your lovemaking, you need to work toward that goal. God created women’s bodies to experience orgasm through the wonderful organ called the clitoris. Yep, that clitoris has one job and one job only—to make sex feel good. And when it gets to the peak of pleasure, you experience muscle spasms that should at least provide a sense of relief if not real excitement.

As to how to prioritize your orgasm, here are a few ideas:

1. Go for your orgasm before intercourse.

It’s a phrase you often hear: she goes first. And it’s not a bad idea. Especially since the average time he can last in intercourse is far less than the average time it takes for a woman to reach the level of arousal she needs to climax. Moreover, a lot of women don’t, or even can’t, climax during intercourse!

Read up on what really helps a woman climax here:

https://hotholyhumorous.com/2018/03/these-3-actions-could-bring-you-to-orgasm/

2. Try various positions to see if any/some of them result in climax for you.

They may not (see above), but it could be worth a shot.

For some wives, it’s better to be on top, so she can have more control with the thrusting and tilt her hips in a way that provides pressure against her clitoris. For other wives, a rear-entry position could result in the husband getting deeper and better friction. And for others, face-to-face is the key, but maybe angling your hips upward or putting your feet on his stomach or your knees over his shoulders (assuming that works with your size/height). A sex pillow might help you achieve better angling too.

I also have a chapter about positions in my Hot, Holy, and Humorous book that can walk you through ways to shift your bodies around and find something that might work for both of you.

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3. He stimulates your clitoris during intercourse.

You might combine intercourse and clitoral stimulation to achieve nice results. Get into a position in which he can reach your clitoral hood (that’s the knobby part of your clitoris that sticks out and swells when aroused). Make sure you have adequate lubrication, and add some personal lubricant if needed.

Give him tips on the level of pressure and amount of movement you desire. You may not know yourself until you try it out, but once he hits a good place, let him know. And since one thing doesn’t work for the whole time with most wives, let your husband know when you need him to slow down, increase speed, press harder, etc.

If you’re looking for which positions will work best, check out this page from Christian Friendly Sex Positions and choose “clitoral stimulation” in the search parameters:

4. Stimulate your own clitoris during intercourse.

It can be challenging for your husband to focus on his thrusting and your clitoral stimulation at the same time, so an alternative is for him to focus on the intercourse while you use your own fingers to bring yourself to climax.

Most husbands would be fine with this—and may find that enthusiasm arousing—but make sure your particular husband understands why you want to do this and that it isn’t taking away from the wonderful experience of having him inside you. If anything, having your husband inside when it happens can make a clitoral orgasm better.

5. Get your orgasm after intercourse.

Let him know the intercourse was great, but you’re not really done and would like to finish with an orgasm yourself. Suggest what you’d like for him to do to help you. Do you want him to manually stimulate you to climax? Do you want him to simply caress, kiss, fondle, etc. while you bring yourself to climax?

Your orgasm is still a mutual experience this way, with both of you focused on connection and pleasure.

Yes, I’m sure some husbands are exhausted post-intercourse and aren’t sure they have it in them to keep going. But if you can prevail a few times, I suspect he’ll see the benefit and realize it’s not much more to ask.

What if after all this, he still doesn’t prioritize your orgasm?

If you did all of this, and he still ignored your climax? Then I’d suspect the problem runs deeper than the bedroom, and I’d ask for marriage counseling.

But hopefully, one or more of the suggestions above will get the point across and help you both prioritize your pleasure—as God intended sex to be in your marriage.

19 thoughts on “Does Your Husband Prioritize Your Orgasm?”

  1. Great post, J. We have two categories of sex positions with clitoral stimulation.

    Sex Positions with Clitoral Stimulation: https://www.christianfriendlysexpositions.com/tag/clitoral-stimulation/ These sex poses position your bodies so that there’s a better chance of clitoral stimulation from his member during intercourse.

    Sex Positions With Access for Manual Clitoral Stimulation: https://www.christianfriendlysexpositions.com/tag/with-access-for-manual-clitoral-stimulation/ Manual clitoral stimulation from either spouse is easier during these positions.

  2. This is one area that my husband does not have a problem doing. There are times that I know it’s just not going to happen with me because my brain is overloaded with too many other things that I can’t get past and he sees it as a challenge to make my orgasm so I will forgot all that even if jist for a few minutes. I wish all husbands would put that much effort into giving their wife pleasure in the bedroom.

  3. As a young adult male 40 years ago I heard that a woman’s arousal can climb at a very high level, but never really understood the many ways a woman arousal can climb. (aside from foreplay) We underestimate the power of woman’s romantic mind works. How powerful a date is, exchanging smiles, navigating through a challenge together, anything really.

    Probably because we were mentored with a strange locker room/porn like mentality of what we think a woman desires which primarily was “do it like rabbits” of fast and furious.

    Later in life, it became a relief to me that wasn’t the case.

    None of us are wired the same, but with my spouse I discovered “Emotional stimulation” is also like foreplay in a lot of ways and elevates arousal and even making love slow and unhurried elevates my spouses’ arousal probably higher than mine. But how would I know, as I don’t?

    Even in moments where both of us have developed a lot of anticipation through basic flirting and emotional stimulation that our arousal peeked and with 10 minutes of spare time, for a little quickie can cause climax for both. (but not always) We don’t do those types of quickies any more as we seem to have more time on our hands, now that are kids have long since move out.

    The “position” chart is nice, because it gives couples passionate ideas to add some spice in the intimacy, but it also kind of makes me chuckle a little.

    Some of the positions I’m not sure my spouse or I are capable of doing, unless we joined the circus, or joined an athletic club and pumped some iron and became seasoned at yoga stretching and bending. Though at age 58, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to join a gym club, but none exists’ where we live.

    Great article.

    1. This is so true! I cannot emphasize how much the things that happen outside the bedroom matter. During the years where my husband was angry all the time and nagging me about things he felt I wasn’t doing right, I wasn’t very interested in sex. When we did it, I would orgasm because, I think, I happen to be able to do that easily. And my husband couldn’t understand why I wasn’t more interested in sex, since, from his perspective, I always seemed to enjoy it.

      But there’s a big difference between physically feeling pleasure and actually being satisfied. It’s hard to explain. But I know that my desire before sex and feelings of being satisfied after are hugely affected by whether I feel an emotional intimacy with my husband beforehand or not. And there is, for me at least, a big difference between a surface level physical orgasm and one that actually creates a satisfied intimate feeling of wanting more. Maybe that’s also a difference for women who have more trouble having an orgasm at all.

    2. I’d love my husband made this a priority. I don’t know the reason but he always get his climax while I do 10% and when it happens it is because we began making love when I was already super excited, near to climax. If we start with me at cero and he is excited already, it is for sure he will finish in about 10-15 minutes while I am still warming up. After 20 years of marriage making love 1-3 times per week, the last year I had many nights of crying for hours. I feel so frustrated, even when I love my husband so much, but I feel I can’t go on with sex any more. Please pray for me.

  4. I laughed at the position chart, too! We’re an older couple and lucky we can find ONE position that works with our achey bodies! However, I can’t imagine how one gets a hand in between the bodies to stimulate anything. Maybe I need to lose my pooch!

  5. We’re going on 56 years of marriage, and most of the time my wife has managed to orgasm, more often than not after I got mine. Rubbing herself on my leg did the trick–usually after I’d had mine. We’d both heard about giving the wife oral sex, but until I read about how great it is it in a now-defunct Christian blog, we didn’t wish to try this, since we both imagined that Christian married couples couldn’t really do this and please the Lord.

    “She cums first” really does work! And guys, she’ll be more than happy to give you a good, intimate time if you eat her to orgasm before you enter her. Wives need to consider, too, that a man who’s never done this may also think it to be nasty, so take care of your hygiene. If the taste bothers you, use some personal lubricant on her vulva–these lubes are flavored, non-toxic and really do taste okay. Shaving, or letting him shave you, can be great foreplay, too, ladies. Those new five-blade razors will shave any body part with nary a nick, so relax and enjoy it. And BTW, a woman’s nether lips (labia) & clit are no more unclean than her mouth, if it’s been freshly washed.

  6. J, this is a great post and I will truly have to say that my orgasm does matter to my husband now but it was not always this way. I think had it been we would not have ended up in a sexless marriage for so long. I did not feel like a priority and it resulted in issues in and out of the bedroom. Thank God that has changed now, I just wish it would have been sooner. I will however be thankful that it is good now and not dwell on the would have, could have, should have.

    1. He just kept adding positions, until some of them are, well, I can’t do a bunch of them either. But hey, if someone wants to go for it, knock yourself out! There are many do-able positions on the site, though.

  7. Was in a sexless marriage one year ago with numerous similar years of withdrawing from each other.with thoughtful conversation I found that intercourse was never very positive for her .
    So we started looking for ways that pleased her and found many ways of pleasures that did not include Intercourse. Now we cannot keep our hands off each other going to sleep and when first awakening in the morning.
    With sessions lasting an hour or even two
    At 64 the fun has really started all when we together looked for solutions.
    And prayed for the best .

  8. What about the inverse of this question? I do care about her pleasure, yet she couldn’t care less about mine. Simply doing the deed should be good enough…..except it isn’t. Talking about it gets nowhere. So I’ll continue to do yeoman’s work in hopes someday she’ll put effort in.

    1. I’ve certainly written posts to wives about needing to prioritize sex in their marriage and not doing it as “pity sex” (Sex and the Pity). That’s just not where this post was aimed. Praying for you!

  9. Pingback: 4 Things Your Husband Wants from You in Bed | Hot, Holy & Humorous

  10. I’ve told my wife that I would love to focus on her, but she never ‘opens up’. There are definitely some gate-keeping issues there that she’s in denial about. Sex (once a month or so) is the same thing every time… she wants me to get on top, and hurry up and finish. She says she just likes it that way. Pretty discouraging for me as someone who wants to take the time to focus on her, get to know what she like, etc.

    It’s so frustrating to want her pleasure and orgasm to be a focal point of our sex life, and have her be so unwilling to go down that road. I don’t know how, or if, we’ll ever get there. To say the least, it’s causing quite a bit of tension. How can I help her understand that there is so much more that we’re both missing out on?

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