My girlfriend likes to make love on top. She says that the missionary position is a sexist relic—that the male-superior position doesn’t give women enough stimulation. Well, goddamn it, I like the power, the view, the exercise that I get when I’m on top. Can you say anything in defense of the missionary position?—T.P., New York, New York
The missionary position has gotten a lot of bad press—a lot of it from missionaries. But there’s nothing intrinsically wrong with it. Two New York–based sex researchers, Edward and Joanne Eichel, taught a group of women a sexual-alignment technique to enhance the standard missionary position. The male adopts a “riding high” position, in which his pelvis overrides the female’s mons area. In addition, the couple try to grind their pubic regions together, rather than resort to the old in and out. The alignment provides constant clitoral contact. The two techniques combined give an effective twist. Almost 77 percent of the women in the research group said that they always or almost always reached orgasm in the missionary position, compared with 27 percent of females in the control group.
We Revisit and Reflect
Sooner or later, missionary becomes the go-to sex position for many couples. It’s old faithful. You can do it with your eyes closed, literally and metaphorically. But as T.P.’s girlfriend correctly asserts, missionary alone is rarely enough for women. As determined by a 2017 study in the Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy, only about two in 10 women can come from penetrative sex alone. Why? Because penetrative sex does not create friction against the clitoris, the female sex organ that, for many women, makes sex feel good. In the same 2017 study, 37 percent of women said clitoral stimulation was necessary for them to orgasm during intercourse.
As a sex columnist, I can call up defense after defense of missionary-position sex. For example, imaginative bedroom power plays that use the position are exciting as long as both (or all) partners are onboard. But missionary is not the problem here. Hubris is.
A woman is voicing her concern that a sex position is not stimulating. That is the beginning, the middle and the end of this question. The writer, however, is more invested in his own dominance. His girlfriend’s pleasure is secondary.
On that point, not much has changed since 1985. That’s me speaking from personal experience. One of my pet peeves is when a man asks post-coitus whether I came or not. Many of my female friends have complained about the same thing, their male partners seemingly ignoring their pleasure points during sex.
This deficit is called the orgasm gap, a term that has taken off in the past decade as women have grown more vocal about their partners’ inability to get them off. In 2017, a study published in Archives of Sexual Behavior found that 65 percent of heterosexual women usually reached orgasm during sex with their partners, compared with a whopping 95 percent of heterosexual men. In comparison, 89 percent of gay men always got off, as did 86 percent of gay women.
Men who have sex with women should be aware of these statistics, especially if they’re interested in fostering healthy, long-term relationships.
Today, treating sexual satisfaction as an afterthought no longer suffices in relationships. Exerting your power by limiting the sex positions you’ll practice qualifies as promoting a form of sexual inequality. No doubt it’s a side effect of the gender inequality we’re working to dismantle.
Now the good news: Any heterosexual couple can implement a few easy tweaks in their lovemaking to close that gap. Begin to think of clitoral stimulation during sex as non-negotiable. That will lead you into positions in which the clitoris can be stimulated throughout intercourse. (Our 1985 Advisor’s advice is still relevant on this point.)
You can also modify the missionary position to allow for more clitoral stimulation. Ask your girlfriend to toss her legs over your shoulders or crisscross them on your chest. She can also lie back on the edge of the bed while you stand over her, which gives both of you manual access to her genitalia. Men, reach down between her legs and massage her clit while you’re inside her, or try using a vibrating ring such as Dame’s Fin ($75) or Lelo’s Tor 2 ($139), or a dual-tip vibrator like Crave’s Duet Flex ($109). Doggy style similarly frees up the hands for clitoral caressing.
The simplest solution is the most rewarding: Keep her happy by changing up how you have sex. It’s not in the Advisor’s interest to ban any sex position; this is PLAYBOY, after all. True to our DNA, we suggest you try more sex. Too often sexual intercourse turns into a compromise between two people. Sexual pleasure occurs when you participate in it equally.