In the 1960s, studies by the superstars of sexology, Masters and Johnson, and others that found 14-16% of women had multiple orgasms. There are just nuggets of information for women: a paper from the 1930s establishing that women reported having several orgasms. The US National Institutes of Health only set up a programme to research vaginal health in 1992 – the male orgasm was first researched a century earlier. But in the late 1970s, medical men were still having earnest discussions in the pages of medical journals about whether menstruating women emitted a poisonous substance called menotoxin, that made flowers wilt. Things are better than they were in the 19th century, when male gynaecologists examined women while standing behind a cloak. A few things that scientists and academics are still fiercely debating: how a female orgasm is triggered, what it does and what it’s for. We’re still in a black hole of not knowing very much about the sexual health and mechanisms of half the population. But dive any deeper into the science of women’s genitalia, and how they work, and there will be surprises. “A feeling of intense sexual pleasure that happens during sexual activity,” according to the NHS. That’s if they get an orgasm in the first place. But if they do, it is unlikely to be because of thrusting. Not because women can’t have multiple orgasms. This scene will be familiar because it has been enacted ever since sex was allowed onscreen. Then perhaps, she will have another and another and another. It will be visible, spectacular, satisfying. Within a minute, usually, the man and woman will have an orgasm at the same time. None of that matters, because the outcome will be the same.
Up against a wall, in a bed, in a car, anywhere. There will be a man and a woman and they are having sex.