Stop Outsourcing Your Pleasure

Your partner isn’t responsible for your pleasure – you are.

We’ve been conditioned to believe that it’s our lover’s job to make us cum. From cultural scripts to tips swapped during drunken nights in college, the message is clear: if your partner doesn’t orgasm, you must have done something wrong. But that’s simply not the case. You didn’t do anything wrong—but you both could have done something differently.

Pleasure is collaborative. Each person is different, and each person has a unique way of experiencing pleasure. Expecting our partners to magically understand how to get us off sets us all up for failure and keeps us stuck in a cycle of mediocre sex. It’s your responsibility to understand your own body and self in order to communicate what feels good. You want to make sure your partner understands how to get you off, and vice versa; but that doesn’t mean it’s their job to do so. It’s a shared responsibility to navigate what the most pleasurable sex life looks like for your partnership.

Where else in your life do you refuse to let someone know exactly how you would best enjoy yourself? (People pleasers – this is a reminder for you to speak up for your needs!) If your partner was making you breakfast, you’d let them know specifically how you’d like your eggs cooked. You’d remind them not to oversalt them and appreciate the way they remembered to add a little garlic powder – just the way you like.

Hoping our partners know exactly how to get us off is just like hoping they know exactly how to cook our breakfasts, with absolutely no direction. That seems like a bad recipe to me. And yes, talking about sex and relaying your specific pleasure map to your partner is a much more vulnerable conversation than how you like your eggs. But it’s no less important! Don’t deny yourself pleasure by refusing to discuss what you like in bed.

Orgasm Isn’t The Goal

Yes, orgasms feel good. Yes, many of us have been taught that sex "ends" when someone cums (surprise: it doesn’t have to!). But instead of focusing on someone cumming, I encourage you to begin using a different approach.

There are so many reasons to intertwine with our lovers – connection, fun, pleasure, novelty, excitement, regulation, the list goes on. However, if we approach sex as a zero-sum orgasm game, it will feel like a failure if no one (or only one of you) cums. You need to stop asking yourself what you did “wrong” in bed if your partner doesn’t cum, or blaming your partner when you don’t cum. No one did anything wrong, and it’s not actually our partner’s responsibility to make us cum - it’s our own.

We can do a lot of things differently when it comes to approaching sex. We can communicate more effectively, both during sex and outside of the bedroom, about what makes playtime pleasurable for each of us. We can stop outsourcing our pleasure to anyone other than ourselves. Owning our own pleasure (which is one of the most liberating things, trust me!) means we are responsible for it, and our partner is responsible for theirs. In this way, we can approach sex as a shared project that focuses on mutual pleasure, as opposed to orgasm.

Owning your pleasure is your birthright. Walking into a sexual experience immediately giving up access to your own pleasure isn’t very empowering and cedes your autonomy. Sex can be a mutually beneficial and enjoyable experience, instead of a disappointing dance with little to no communication.

Speaking up for what you like is hot. And it will make the sex that much hotter.

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