This week Iām on my 3rd week of couples/team coaching training + May Day. Thus, this week Iām sharing with you an oldie but a goodie.
At the time of writing this, I was frustrated about the portrayals of sex Iād been seeing on TV. It just didnāt match up with what I knew.
So I wrote about itā¦
But Women Donāt Orgasm Like That
TV execs, stop portraying womenās sexuality so ignorantly.

Let me preface this article by saying, I love Catherine Reitman, and I love sitting in bed, turning my brain off, and watching an episode or two of Workinā Moms, the Netflix show she created and stars in.
The show can only be described as feminist given Reitmanās role and its funny female leads.
But I have a bone to pick with this show. And that bone lies in the storyline of the last episode I saw. Somehow in this episode, this āfeministā show manages to set us back decades in its portrayal of womenās sexuality. Hereās what happens. (Spoiler alert!)
In the episode, one of the showās newer characters Sloane, a single and pregnant high-powered publishing executive, goes for an ultrasound. And the ultrasound technician just happens to be this cute guy sheād randomly kissed in another episode, on a dare.
What a coincidence!
After she lies down on the medical bed, Sexy Technician announces that he must give Sloane a ātransvaginalā ultrasound because itās ātoo earlyā to do a normal belly one.
He sticks the wand up her vagina, and as itās there, the two of them have a nice chat. When heās finished, they make eye contact as he removes the wand from her body.
The chemistry between the two is potent, and admittedly, itās kind of hot.
But what is markedly NOT hot, is what happens later in the episode.
At some point in the evening, Sloane goes back to the ultrasound room, where the Sexy Technician is closing up shop and says she wants another ultrasound. He ādidnāt do a good job the first time.ā
So she gets back on the bed, puts her feet into the stirrups, and opens wide. He puts back on his gloves, and the wand back in her vagina.
After itās in, she tells him to look at her, smiling coyly.
After a moment, he realizes whatās really going on here (sheās making a move on him) and asks her where she wants him to move the wand next. āA little to the left,ā she says.
Thereās some moaning and writhing, and then 70 seconds, (yes, thatās one minute and 10 seconds later) Sloane has what we can only very well assume is an orgasm. (He then asks her if sheād like to get lunch sometime.)
And okay, okay, maybe the scene is a straight womenās wet dream. And weāve got to give it to Sloane for being so direct about how she wants to be touched. We sense her power.
But overall this scene is more damaging to us all, women of the Earth, than it is pleasing.
Because the likelihood that Sloane or any woman would climax the way she did on screen is minuscule.
TV, you need to stop doing this. Stop portraying womenās sexuality so ignorantly. We donāt know a lot about womenās sexuality, but we do, at least, know this.
Women do not orgasm in one minute.
From the time he sticks the wand in her vagina to orgasm, 70 seconds pass. Without any cuts to imply that the whole thing lasted longer than what the viewer sees.
But in a study where 645 straight women were asked to set a stopwatch after becoming sexually aroused with a partner and stop it when they reached orgasm, researchers found the average time to orgasm for women was 13 minutes and 25 seconds, and the time to orgasm ranged anywhere from 5 minutes 42 seconds to just over 21 minutes.
And these were just the women who were able to orgasm at all.
Around one in six of those who took part in the study said they never climaxed during intercourse.
This study obviously has a lot of flaws, but if it tells us anything, itās that 70 seconds is by no means normal. In this study at least, itās several minutes shorter than the person who took the least time to orgasm.
Most women do not orgasm without clitoral stimulation.
In the scene, Sexy Technician sticks a wand up Sloaneās vagina. Thatās it. As far as we can assume, no clit-action was involved.
But most women do not orgasm without involving their clitorises, the bulb filled with nerve endings at the top of the vulva.
According to a study, only about one-fifth of women reported being able to have an orgasm reliably from vaginal penetration alone. And according to Emily Nagoskiās best-selling book Come as You Are, āwomen who masturbate typically do so with little or no vaginal penetration, including when they use vibrators.ā
Yet even without her clit involved, Sloane still came faster than any of those 645 women in the study. By a long shot.
That is a head-scratcher if you ask me.
Most people would find it hard to orgasm in strange settings with strangers.
Lastly, Sloane only knew this man from one conversation and a kiss in the park. Sexy Technician was essentially a stranger. And the doctorās office was a strange place. This is another reason itās unlikely she would have climaxed that evening.
According to an article in Playboy, researchers who surveyed 2,000 men and women found that āonly one in 10 females achieve an orgasm during a one-night stand.ā
A little excitement and novelty are essential to a lot of people.
But to most people, especially women, feeling safe and at home is an even more important component to being able to feel sexual pleasure and thus climax.
Itās very unlikely that a person could so easily come to orgasm in this scenario.
So I hope you can see why I hate this scene. It perpetuates falsehoods about womenās sexuality that have been perpetuated for far too long already.
Namely, that women should easily reach orgasm the way that men do. With just a little bit of PIV (penis in vagina) sex, itās only a matter of seconds before wham bam, thank you maāam.
I used to believe that thatās how it worked too.
I used to believe that because I couldnāt come like that, it meant something was wrong with me.
But itās just not true, and it's a very penis-centric way of looking at sex.
Could the scene we watched have really happened in reality? Sure. Iām certain there is some tiny percentage of women for whom getting a medical wand of lube shoved up her vagina for a minute will make her come. And if youāre one of those people, awesome!
But trust, itās a very very small percentage.
And I hope no man believes after watching this that shoving anything up my vagina for one minute is going to make me orgasm.
And even more importantly, I hope no younger women (or older women for that matter) watched this and thought, whatās wrong with me? Why canāt I do that? Why canāt I do anything close to that?
Am I broken?
Workinā Moms is a show produced created and starred in by women. If anyone is going to get this right, it should be them.
Filmmakers, authors, bloggers, and creatives, take this seriously. because your inaccurate portrayals of sex are as good as the worst porn mogulsā. We need to take this seriously so people know what is normal and what isnāt.
Next time youāre in that boardroom devising sex scenes, please just take a few minutes to do your research.
Take a minute to think about the effect youāre having on your viewers and the world, a place already traumatized by shame around sex.
Help us come out of it, donāt shoot us back in the wrong direction.
You have a chance to make a difference here when it comes to sexual health and womenās pleasure.
Catherine Reitman, I love you, but you can do better.
This would be really triggering for me to watch. I have Stage 4 Endometriosis. When my endometrioma (baseball growth on one ovary) ruptured inside me, an unattractive (kind of scary) looking ultrasound tech (man) had to do an uncomfortable and painful trans-v ultrasound on me. In the ER with one woman nurse watching. I kind of hate that this show portrays that in a hot way. However, to each their own (I have a rather odd fantasy life myself).
Good post.
How do I become a paid subscriber?