Orgasm is an autonomic physiologic response to sexual stimulation. Brain wave patterns have shown distinct changes during orgasm, which indicate the importance of the limbic system in the orgasmic response. In humans, orgasms usually result from the stimulation of the penis in males and the clitoris in females. Stimulation can be by self-practice (masturbation) or by a partner (penetrative sexual intercourse, non-penetrative sex; also known as outercourse, and other erotic sexual activities). In addition, partners simultaneously stimulating each other's sex organs by mutual masturbation, penetrative intercourse, or other rhythmic inter-genital contact may experience simultaneous orgasms.
The period after orgasm (known as a refractory period) is often a relaxing experience, attributed to the release of the neurohormones oxytocin and prolactin. Male and female brains demonstrate similar changes during orgasm (by partner controlled orgasm), with brain activity scans showing a temporary decrease in the metabolic activity of large parts of the cerebral cortex with normal or increased metabolic activity in the limbic areas of the brain.
Dr. Drew Pinsky stated:
...Men and women are wired differently, moreover women are wired differently from each other. Many times women will feel as though they are flawed because they are not living up to a certain standard of climaxing. Men make it worse because they generalize what’s needed to make a woman climax. Often men believe women are the same, and once they figure what works for one woman they apply that same method to all the other women they are intimate with, and that’s one of the major problems. 50-60% of women will never have an orgasm via intercourse and will require clitoral stimulation to climax. 30% of women will have a reliable orgasm with intercourse. 10% of women will orgasm with intercourse and could possibly have sequential orgasms. 5% of women have true multiple orgasms only through intercourse and these women typically find oral sex uncomfortable.
