A steadily increasing minority of boys are engaged in coitus. Orgasms without ejaculation do occur. There is no rest necessary following orgasm, so that serial climaxes crop up in quick succession. Girls, who begin life with a greater erotic response, continue to lag far behind, although their trend is similar.
In early puberty the divergence between the sexes
becomes even more striking. The adolescent boy has his eroticism
imposed by nature. There is an enormous rise in the
erotogenic hormone, testosterone, which can produce intense
sexual interest when administered to either sex. Nocturnal
orgasms occur without encouragement or permission. The
penis rubs against clothing and immediately responds to the
sight or thought of an amenable maiden. The boy has fewer
constraints and may be subtly encouraged by his father and
openly urged by schoolmates.
Older brothers may provide
instruction. In contrast, the girl experiences a rise in the
female hormones, estrogen and progesterone. These contrib
ute little to her eroticism, and may even detract from it. She
may still be unaware of her clitoris, which is tucked away
beneath several fleshy folds and unromantically named
"down there." Confusion and anxiety may accompany the
onset of menses, the presence of blood, and often some discomfort.
She is never to appreciate the raw, unsolicited gratification
of a wet dream. She is beset by cultural
remonstrances, ignorance, shame, and the fear of gossip.
Most importantly, she has a past marked by deficiencies in
erotic pleasure.
Kinsey states:
Fifty percent of the girls from the upper social levels manage to
arrive at marriage before they have ever experienced sexual
arousal to the point of complete climax. Many people are proud
of this, and think it an ideal which the boy might very well follow.
But the girl has achieved her so-called sublimation as a
result of a long build-up of inhibitions. Against her record of no
orgasms before marriage, the male she weds has a record of
some thousand or fifteen hundred climaxes. One hardly needs to
look further for the chief cause of sexual incompatibilities in
marriage. One-half of all these previously unresponsive girls-
that is one quarter to a third of all the women who marry-will
fail to come to climax in intercourse after marriage.
In 1970, Masters and Johnson estimate that half of all
marriages are sexually dysfunctional. Others, such as Wag-
goner (1974), feel that this is a conservative estimate. It is
generally agreed that women are far more impaired than
men, and that this is related to their lack of early sex experience.
The overwhelming preponderance of orgasmic dysfunction
in women is clearly related to their lack of early sex
experience.
Although the young male commonly attains a climax efficiently,
he is beset by other problems. He ruminates about the
size of his penis, the persistence of his erection, or his ability
to satisfy his mate. He experiences a pervasive sense of inad
equacy which transforms the bed into an arena or, occasionally,
a dunce stool. His anxiety precipitates premature
ejaculation, retarded ejaculation, and impotence. His problems
also emanate from childhood, especially from sexually
blurred and unenthusiastic parenting.
Fifty percent of all
marriages are estimated to suffer from some form of sexual
dysfunction. Sex clinics are manifesting an unprecedented
expansion. Training programs for therapists are full, and
couples who need treatment are placed on long waiting lists.
Those who request aid are but a tiny fraction of those who
could benefit. Some who request treatment cannot be helped.