Ask Peaches: Why does it seem like every smut FMC knows the secret to penetration-only orgasms?

New here, darling? This post is part of a series called 'Ask Peaches' where I answer the delicious, burning questions you have about smut, sex and anything spicy in between. Read this for more context or send your own juicy musings straight to me at peaches@ladieswholit.co.uk. Always anonymous, always answered in good faith and good fun. Take what you love and leave anything you don't.

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This Ask Peaches is a little different - it comes courtesy of our ever-spicy Smut Girlies WhatsApp community. And I couldn’t resist the temptation to spill the tea…

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‘Just had an interesting post on my FB feed about a woman asking how common or uncommon it is to orgasm from penetrative sex. All the comments are very encouraging to me that it’s a small percentage of women who do. Which brings me onto my point of one of my major smut pet peeves. How every woman in smutty books finishes within seconds with so little stimulation, it’s just not realistic and it’s in every bloody book.’

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If I didn’t know better, darling, I’d say you’d been inside my head (and I’m surprised there’s room, what with Kage Porter currently living there rent-free.) 

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I relish smut in all its forms, from the cuter, cosier side that’s still packed with spice to the darker end of the spectrum that you might hide from your therapist. But whatever I’m devouring that day, I want to be immersed. All in. While my disbelief will happily suspend for a dextrous-tongued minotaur or a reverse vampire harem, the zero-to-sixty, penis-only female orgasm trope can leave me feeling unsatisfied. And I don’t think I need to tell you how seriously I take my satisfaction.

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So, why does it seem like every FMC has mastered the mysterious, elusive, penetrative O when most of us have never gotten close? Thanks to one of my favourite feral non-fiction reads and its fabulous author, I’ve got an answer for you, treasure.

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Flick by Dr. Kate Lister (Bookshop US // Bookshop UK // Amazon) is the story of female pleasure. Beginning with the lustful legacy of the Ancient Sumerian gods, the divine Dr. Kate plots the course of perception and experience when it comes to women having desires, having sex and having orgasms. For such a delicious topic cluster, there’s a lot to get heated about (and not in the good way…)

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In the chapter ‘Coming and Glowing: The History of the Orgasm’, Kate introduces the outrageous state of O-ffairs for heterosexual women, who orgasm significantly less during sex than women who have sex with women (65% vs. 86%). Add to that the statistic that only 18% of women say they can orgasm from penetrative sex alone. So, it’s not just you – it really is the exception rather than the rule. But it still leaves us with your dilemma, my sister in smut. If 4 in 5 IRL women need clitoral attention to cum, but 4 in 5 spicy romance FMCs can go without, make it make sense?

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Kate explores the path to penetrative fever in fascinating depth, so I would urge you to read the book if you want all the juicy details. Unsurprisingly, the modern history of the vaginal orgasm involves terrible takes from Freud and other male doctors. Women were considered “sexually immature” and “frigid” if they could only orgasm with clitoral stimulation, and required medical intervention. Faking orgasms were also promoted as a way to keep your husband happy and promote harmony in the home. Thankfully, the 1960s brought hope for our pleasure pursuits in the form of actual science:

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“After centuries of shaming and pathologizing women whose vaginas couldn’t produce an orgasm at the mere sight of a willy, it turns out there is no such thing as a ‘vaginal orgasm’. It doesn’t exist, or at least not in the way we think it does. What we think of as the ‘G-spot’ inside the vagina is actually the clitoris being stimulated from within.”

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The part that deserves highlighting here for your query, darling, is the “centuries” bit. Generations of men and women have been conditioned to believe that there’s nothing that beats a cock for climaxing. Even when you’ve experienced those high clitoral highs, there’s a little myth embedded in our brains that says we’re missing out – and that it’s our fault.

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When you also consider how much erotic media (from silver-screen sex scenes to straight-up porn) is made by men, for the male gaze, it’s no wonder that a genre as female-led as smut still subconsciously prioritises phallic fantasies. 

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This is no shade to the sensational authors and readers of spicy romance – my fellow c-literary queens – because we’ve all been conditioned and conned. But the more we talk openly about our desires and pleasure, what turns us on and off IRL and in fantasy, the more delicious material there’ll be for authors to draw from (and imagine how juicy the group chats would get…)

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So, mystery solved, but what about your TBR? Well I’ve got good news, darling: there are many exceptions to the penis pedestal rule. Just the other day I shared 9 spicy books that give the best head scenes, and I’ve also got a list of 12 spicy sapphic romances for your first FF read for your reading pleasure. And if you want bonus Peaches points, share this with your group chat so they know every O is theirs to own. Stay smutty.

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