Everyone deserves a pleasurable, meaningful, fulfilled sex life, and the route to get it is often about mutual understanding and trust as well as the right techniques, toys and sexy knickers.

That goes for everyone involved in a sexual encounter, and when one person gets so much more out of sex than another, that can be a problem that can cause resentment or even the end of a relationship.

At its broadest, this issue is known broadly as the pleasure gap, also known as the orgasm gap due to the most common way that it is measured.

First mentioned in the Kinsey Report and given its name in the 1990s, the orgasm gap is the trend that, in heterosexual relationships at least, women get as little as a fifth of the pleasure of men.

Orgasms alone are not the perfect basis for a statistic about pleasure, since not every satisfying liaison ends in an orgasm and climaxes are not always equal, but it is often used as a starting point to explore why some relationships can seem unfair and as if one person’s needs are put above the other’s.

Understanding that there might be a problem and possible cause is the first step, but if someone feels like they are suffering from a pleasure gap in their relationship, what can they do to bridge it?

The starting point is as much in the mind as it is between the legs.

Equality, Empowerment and Great Sex

In a 2022 study of 1126 Canadian women, Tina Fetner asked women about their recent sexual activities, both with a partner and on their own.

Interestingly, she found that women who identified as feminists were more likely to have more intimate, loving and pleasurable sex, although both groups in the study reported a high level of satisfaction with their sex life.

There are a few reasons for this, the first being that women who seek equality in other parts of their lives will also want it in the bedroom, and will not only know what makes them feel great but also will ask their partners for it.

The study specifically measured oral sex, but there is a greater focus on clitoral stimulation in general and the powerful orgasms that it can provide.

The answer may also be found through social circles and the greater level of comfort they have in talking about sex, pleasure, what works and what does not, as well as feeling more comfortable exploring themselves and understanding what makes them orgasm.

It could also be explained through their partners; feminist women may be more likely to have sex with feminist men, who through other studies are found to be more likely to stimulate the body and give oral sex than non-feminist men, as well as having a more general focus on equality.

Finally, part of it could be about the definition of sex itself; studies on the ideal length of a sexual encounter vary wildly in no small part because some people only count penetration itself as sex when the reality is that sex involves stimulation, touching and even the buildup to a passionate kiss.