Tara Tainton

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...The discrepancy between male and female ability to orgasm is well established. Doing it Down Under, a 2004 study of Australian sexuality, found that 29 per cent of women, compared with 6 per cent of men, had trouble reaching orgasm.

Unlike the medical companies, which are still shooting in the dark for a "cure", specialists such as O'Connell and Cass are making major headway into improving the sex lives of women.

O'Connell's new map of the clitoris and the nerves that supply it - she found the organ comprises not just the external "head", but also a larger structure that wraps around the vagina and urethra - will save women from having crucial genital nerve endings cut unnecessarily during surgery.

Her study has also shed new light on the "vaginal versus clitoral orgasm" debate.

"I think if you're trying to separate the two of them it's probably, you know, like barking up the wrong tree; I think they're clearly one and the same structure," she told the ABC.

She also thinks the elusive G-spot is the erectile tissue on the outside of the urethra.

Assuming O'Brien's research supports her theory - that lack of stimulation of the reproductive tract during puberty could lead to the "trimming" of unused nerve connections in the brain and inhibit the ability to climax later on - a little sex education could be all it takes to prevent women from being dissatisfied.

"Society is more successful at discouraging girls, rather than boys [from using their reproductive tracts around puberty], and when we get to adulthood, who is it that has the greater proportion of sexual problems? It's the girls.

"[So] it will be up to sex educators to come up with some really clever ways that society will accept to teach our teenagers how to have a healthy sex life during adolescence. Because if we can prevent orgasm problems in adults, it's better than being able to cure them."

Regardless of where research takes the debate, there can be no doubt that the tide of sexual research has shifted from the early days, when men's needs were the primary agenda.

"There's been more focus on men [in the past], because of the HIV epidemic and male-to-male communication [of the disease]," says Dr Chris Rissel, associate professor in public health at the University of Sydney, and the co-author of Doing It Down Under.

"[Now] we're looking for a sexually healthy society where men and women equally enjoy sex and know what to do to please their partners."

His intention, he says, is for his team to repeat the study in 10 years, to see whether the goal has been reached.

Until that time, it's likely that women from all walks of life - both sex experts and members of the public - will fight to ensure that the current agenda sticks.

Cass says: "What we've got coming up is a generation of women who are used to having orgasms, used to having some reasonably decent sex, unlike previous generations.

"So the trend here is a bunch of women saying, 'I don't like this', and they'll actually come to me and be absolutely furious and frustrated, [saying] 'I'm not going to put up with this'."

So, does Marrena Lindberg's so-called orgasm diet really work?

There's no doubt that the diet itself is simple.

The first step is to "improve libido" by adopting a high-protein, low-carb diet "full of good fats", consuming a combination of high-dose fish oil ("an extremely unusual amount"), calcium, magnesium, zinc and 15 grams of dark chocolate every day and avoiding stimulants such as caffeine. (Lindberg refuses to give exact amounts of her ingredients for fear of jeopardising a book deal.)

The second step is to do regular kegel exercises to develop PC (pubococcygeus) muscle strength.

"I used myself as a guinea pig," Lindberg says of the diet, She says it has helped her go from having great difficulty reaching orgasm to achieving 27 consecutive clitoral orgasms with use of a vibrator.

But aside from a handful of women who have tried the diet after finding it on Lindberg's web-based forum, no scientific study has been conducted. (She is currently lobbying fish oil companies to fund a study in conjunction with a scientist at Columbia University).

Local experts are sceptical about its effectiveness.

University of New England physiologist and sex researcher Dr Gemma O'Brien says: "Since we don't know how [orgasm] works, it's difficult to see how we would know which nutrients would help."

Sydney dietitian Susie Burrell agrees: "There is no scientific evidence that links any particular food to orgasm."

She adds that achieving orgasm "is a lot about how psychologically comfortable [women] are ... It is probably just a feel-good diet just being sold on orgasm to get everyone's attention."

Burrell concedes, though, that, with dark chocolate increasing circulation of the feel-good hormone serotonin in the body and fish oil providing anti-inflammatory benefits, women are more likely to feel better in general, which could lead them to become more likely to achieve orgasm.

Caffeine also dehydrates the body, which can wreak havoc with a woman's lubrication.

Vivienne Cass, a clinical psychologist, sex therapist and author of The Elusive Orgasm, doesn't doubt that the diet has improved Lindberg's sex life, but says this would likely be due to a placebo effect.

"When we give women a placebo in a sexual trial, we know this will improve [their] sex lives by 40 per cent. [Because] if you get women to focus on their sexuality in any sense of the word, they will actually become more aroused," she says.

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Ain't that the truth!

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Anonymous | 2009-12-19 17:40 michael g.b. 07/19/2006 11:18 PM don't blame it on "society" . . . "Blame It On The Bossa Nova"! :) seriously . . . while there are probably dietary and physiologocal reasons why some women have problems having or do not have orgasms . . . psychological blocks probably predominate . . . and these probably have their roots in attitudes and beliefs in social expectations communicated to them from early years and carried into adulthood. these could be sociological or religious/moral lessons embedded in their personalities . . . but in the end . . there probably isn't any "one size fits all" answer . . . each individual is unique. Tara, your Multi-Orgasmic WebMistress 07/20/2006 12:42 AM When it comes to something as simultaneously complicated and simple as sex, there's a million different factors involved. Add everyone's unique personality and body in the mix and it's almost amazing how easy orgasms can come physically! :) But as for psychology...it seems to have the biggest influence in so many areas of our lives. It just comes down to realizing how much you need to take care of your inner self, your mindset, your needs, your happiness, to achieve whatever it is you really want in life. Even orgasms. ;) Linda Smith 07/21/2006 04:58 PM I finally posted my article, "My Orgasm and Sexual Secrets", and you click on my name above to get to that blog. Forget what I was going to say next.... grrr hate when that happens..... anyway, has to do with orgasm and my theories around it.... OH... Part of a happy teenage sexlife is the ability, permission, and time/space needed to masturbate, to dream, to come.... all in privacy. By oneself, and perhaps also with a partner. I regret that I fell into the Catholic "good girl" mentality and thus didn't masturbate much more often. Now I'm making up for it! :-) Tara, your Sister WebMistress 07/22/2006 01:59 AM You and me both, Linda! Except my childhood was dictated more by &...

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3.23 Copyright (C) 2007 Alain Georgette / Copyright (C) 2006 Frantisek Hliva. All rights reserved."