I Can’t Orgasm, Am I Broken?

The first time I had a go at an orgasm, I tried to plan for everything. Music? Check. Unrealistic erotic content? Check. Privacy? I mean, as much privacy as a young teen could get in her childhood bedroom so…kinda check? Fingers ready, I went for it and as my desire to succeed crescendoed, I didn’t. I felt nothing. Truth be told, my first attempts at masturbating were uncomfortable and embarrassing.

When I confided in my friends, they were sympathetic but it seemed that each of them in their own way had figured themselves out. They couldn’t relate to my struggle to orgasm. Throughout my teenage years, I tried modifying every variable I could think of. I thought that if I just had the right playlist, or tried moving my fingers at exactly the right angle, I could spontaneously fix myself. But I still couldn’t reach the elusive ‘big O’ my friends talked about: the supposedly euphoric experience that I’d watched play out on TV and in movies. I started to think that maybe I wasn’t meant to experience an orgasm. That maybe I was broken. 

Hearing about my struggle, a friend who I had always looked up to for her confidence and strength took me aside on my 17th birthday and presented me with a small box. “It worked for me,” she said. “It might just work for you.” It was a brand-new Satisfyer Pro, a clitoral vibrator apparently changing the sex toy landscape for people with vaginas. It was totally portable, waterproof, sleek, shiny — and utterly terrifying. I didn’t touch the box for at least a couple of months. I watched YouTube reviews and revisited the step-by-step articles from my youth that promised to teach me how to orgasm before setting out to give it a try. Unfortunately, the first time using the vibrator was too much for me. Even the slowest setting felt like ants all over my clitoris. So I hid the box away and grappled with a fresh onslaught of shame. 

It was a shame that I needn’t have felt. Despite my generation having more information than ever at our fingertips, our sex education is still deeply flawed and far from comprehensive. As a teen growing up in the San Francisco Bay Area, I was lucky to be surrounded by empowering young people who talked openly and honestly about pleasure. I remember being 13 and at a Halloween slumber party, having whispered conversations by flashlight after putting on flimsy sheet masks and eating popcorn, laughter hiding our nervousness over topics we really didn’t know anything about. These conversations led me to the teenage manuals of women’s magazines and websites, where I learned that there was an elusive state called an ‘orgasm’ or, colloquially, ‘the big O’. For penises, ejaculation was the obvious marker of having reached orgasm. But for vaginas? The scientific literature I came across wasn’t helpful at all and mainly referenced studies from the early '70s. The articles I read described reaching orgasm as feeling like fireworks, whatever that meant. My curiosity led me to follow each article step by step in my bid to discover what an orgasm actually felt like, ultimately leading me to my initial failed attempt. Years had gone by and here I was at 17, still hitting the same wall. 

In high school, fuelled by misinformation, stigma and frustration at my perceived failure to experience an orgasm, I became involved in sex education. Simultaneously, I grew comfortable with my culture as the daughter of immigrants, and as a rising senior, created a consent curriculum that I taught to over 300 youth in my parents’ hometown in south India. After I came back to the United States, I became a UCSF California-certified sexual health educator and eventually, during my final year of high school (and at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic), I set out on TikTok, creating my platform @sexedu to reach as many as I could with my work. 

From what I’ve seen as an educator, we're in desperate need of comprehensive sex education. We need to deconstruct the idea that sexual wellbeing is a taboo topic. I know now as a creator that my story of struggling to figure out how to orgasm isn’t unique. I want every young person to know that regardless of their journey with pleasure, they aren’t alone and they aren’t broken. That’s why I’m sharing my story. In 2023, we need stories to break the stigma.

In what felt to 17-year-old me like a last-ditch effort, I shared my desolate feelings with the friend who’d gifted me the vibrator. She urged me to try again — she said that it was uncomfortable simply because it was unknown. It was a brand-new sensation; I just had to lean into the discomfort to make a discovery. I took a long, hard look at myself. I looked at my body with a mirror in an attempt to become comfortable with these parts that society had made me shy away from. I shoved down the shame I felt and focused on exploring, not on the destination I sought. Yes, I reached those fireworks. Yes, it felt brand-new the first time, and a little uncomfortable because of that. But yes, it was fantastic. It was an experience that belonged to me and that connected me to humankind. 

In the end, the elusive orgasm was a journey for me as it is for so many. After all, there are so many types of orgasm: clitoral, vaginal, deep vaginal, G-spot, anal, nipple, ‘coregasms’, audio/visual, blended and possibly more (there’s a debate to be had about the exact number of types given the lack of research on pleasure for people with vaginas). The journey to reaching an orgasm looks different for everyone! Some reach their first orgasm early on with ease; others might not say ‘orgasm’ aloud until they reach college. You shouldn't feel pressure to orgasm every time either — even the practice of masturbation without orgasm can be pleasurable. 

You aren’t broken if you can’t orgasm from penetration alone, or if you need a half hour of foreplay, or if you can’t orgasm more than once at a time. Pleasure is a biological function; it can also be magical and frustrating and your relationship with it can change over time. But regardless of all this, pleasure unites us all — via orgasm, or whatever pleasure might look like for you. It is your right to experience pleasure in whatever consensual capacity you choose.

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