Stuck Wondering “Why Can’t I Orgasm?” Here’s What You Need to Know
If you’ve ever found yourself asking the question, Why can’t I orgasm? - You are not alone.
In fact, you are in the company of millions of women who have been conditioned to believe their bodies are the problem when it comes to sexual dysfunction, and that their pleasure is elusive or even unattainable.
10–15% of women have never had an orgasm, and half of women feel unsatisfied with how often they climax. Many experience difficulty achieving orgasm despite sexual arousal and stimulation. These statistics are carried quietly, often with shame, accompanied by feeling like there’s something missing, like there's a secret code that hasn't been cracked.
If this is your experience, know that the reason is not that your body is "broken," and that there is a proven path to deepen your experience & relationship to orgasm.
This path is based in resolving disconnection: disconnection from your body, from your desires, and from the deep, ancient wisdom of your pussy.
For many women, the struggle to orgasm doesn’t start with physical limitations, it starts with the expectation that our bodies should perform in a certain way. That we should climax effortlessly through mis-attuned penetration. That our arousal should mirror the scenes we’ve absorbed from a culture that says fast, hard, intense stimulation will bring about the highest pleasure outcomes.
The result? We stop listening to our own sensations. We stop trusting our own rhythms. We try to force orgasms instead of inviting them.
This isn’t your fault. You’ve been handed a flawed script. But the good news? You get to rewrite it.
Understanding the Female Orgasm: A Complex Process
Only 25% of women consistently orgasm from vaginal intercourse
The clitoris, with over 8,000 nerve endings, is a gateway to pleasure for most women. Only 25% of women consistently orgasm from vaginal intercourse, while the rest rely on direct clitoral stimulation.
Orgasm frequency isn’t just personal, it’s cultural. Studies show that the prevalence of female orgasmic disorder varies widely, from 16–28% in regions like the USA, Europe, and South America, to as high as 46% in Asian countries. This reveals how cultural norms, taboos, sexual history, and societal attitudes around sex deeply influence a woman’s ability to access her pleasure.
Tension in the pelvic bowl, numbness from trauma, or simply a lack of practice in tuning into sensation are significant contributors to feeling like pleasure is out of reach.
Safety is non-negotiable when it comes to female orgasm. If your nervous system doesn’t feel safe, whether because of shame, stress, or an absence of emotional connection, your ability to receive, open, and surrender to pleasure will be diminished. Orgasm isn’t something to be forced. It’s a letting go and an allowing of what is already known within the body.
The Mind’s Role in Sexual Pleasure
The mind can either assist in or detract from sexual pleasure. Worry, judgment, or self-criticism can make it difficult to truly feel your body. You can’t overthink your way to an orgasm, and yet many women are trying to do exactly that. The sexual response cycle, desire, arousal, plateau, orgasm, and resolution, requires presence at every stage. When you're stuck in your thoughts, it can be very difficult to experience the fullness of the present moment, including understanding your body's signals which, when attuned to, can guide you towards deeper pleasure.
Approximately one-third of women taking SSRIs (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors) experience delayed orgasm, orgasmic dysfunction or even a complete inability to climax. In trying to “cure” emotional struggles with antidepressants, we’re creating other symptoms, often overlooking the deeper root causes, and instead creating new barriers to pleasure and connection in the process.
So why does this all matter? Because understanding the layers of orgasm allows you to shift the focus. It’s not about “achieving” anything. It’s about reconnecting. When you tune into your body, trust your pussy’s wisdom, and give yourself permission to feel without expectation, your pleasure starts to expand.
You’re not here to perform pleasure. You’re here to embody it.
Common Causes of Difficulty Reaching Orgasm
Emotional and Psychological Factors
Self-Esteem and Body Image
Orgasm frequency in women is highly correlated with psychological factors. If you’re worried about how you look, how you move, or whether you’re “enough,” you’re blocking your natural ability to let go. The truth is, orgasm requires radical self-acceptance. The moment you stop treating your body like a project to fix and start honoring her as a vessel of transformational pleasure potential, things shift, leading to more pleasurable sex.
Past Sexual Trauma
Trauma lives in the body. It creates tension, numbness, and blocks that keep you from fully accessing the pleasure that is rightfully yours. And while the world tells you to “get over it,” the truth is, healing takes time. It takes tenderness. Reconnecting with your pussy slowly and intentionally, is one of the most profound ways to rebuild trust within yourself and address the effects of past sexual trauma on your ability to experience satisfying sexual stimulation.
Performance Anxiety
Are you trying to “get it right”? Do you worry about how long it’s taking or whether you’re responding fast enough? Orgasm has nothing to do with performance. It’s not about doing, it’s about being. The harder you try, the further away it feels. Let go of the pressure. Let go of the timeline. Your body operates on her own clock, and when you surrender to her rhythms, that’s when the magic happens.
Anxiety can make it difficult to reach orgasm, so it's important to relax and let go. But simply telling yourself to relax isn't an effective, long-term solution. Often what's required to shift performance anxiety is slow, mindful practices that bring your attention deeper towards the subtle sensations and emotions felt in the body. When you're paying attention to how you feel, rather than the stories and goals in your mind, surrendering into the present moment becomes increasingly accessible.
Mental Health Conditions
Stress, anxiety, depression, these things pull you out of your body and into your head. And when your mind is racing in a vigilant or sympathetic-activated state, your pussy is less likely to engorge with blood flow, soften, and open. Orgasm is deeply tied to your nervous system. Practices like slow breathwork, plenty of sensual touch, or even just taking a moment to exhale can help relieve stress and bring you back into connection with your body, enhancing your sexual experience.
Cultural or Religious Beliefs
If you grew up with messages that sex was “wrong,” that your desires were “too much,” or that your body was something to be controlled, it’s no wonder pleasure feels foreign. Shame doesn’t just disappear, it lingers in your body, in your pelvis, and in your pussy. Releasing it starts with rewriting the story: your body is sacred, your pleasure is divine, and your desires are valid.
Relationship Dynamics
Communication Issues
If you’re not speaking your truth outside the bedroom, it’s going to show up inside it. Orgasm requires vulnerability, but how can you be vulnerable if you don’t feel seen or heard? This is where radical honesty comes in—not just with your partner, but with yourself. What do you really need? What are you not saying? Start there.
Partner’s Sexual Dysfunction
Your partner’s struggles can create tension in the relationship and, by extension, in the bedroom. But your orgasm doesn’t have to be tied to their performance. Your pleasure belongs to you. While compassion is important, so is advocating for your own needs.
Mismatched Sexual Needs
When your libidos or preferences don’t align, it can feel like you’re always compromising. And while compromise has its place, orgasm doesn’t live in half-truths. It lives in your full, unapologetic expression. The more you connect with your own pleasure, the more you can navigate these mismatches from a place of empowerment rather than resentment.
Intimacy Issues Outside the Bedroom
This is the unsaid truth: when your needs outside the bedroom aren’t met, your pussy and the rest of your body notices. If you’re holding back your truth, carrying resentment, or feeling unseen in your relationship, it creates sexual tension and that blocks pleasure. This is why connecting with the “voice of your pussy” is so transformative. When you’re in tune with your own truth - your desires, your needs, your boundaries - you bring that authenticity into the relationship, and it changes everything.
Self-Connection: The Foundation for Female Sexual Empowerment
Before there’s a partner,
before there’s performance,
there’s you.
Your orgasmic potential begins with how deeply you’re connected to yourself and your own sexual health, far beyond how sexual health is defined in the mainstream medical system. Before there’s a partner, before there’s performance, there’s you. The way you move in your body, the way you speak to her, the way you listen to her - all of this creates the foundation for your sexual experience.
Women have been taught to outsource their pleasure, to look to a partner to figure out what feels good, and to prioritize their lover’s experience over their own. But your body already knows what she needs, you just need to commune with her wisdom.
Confidence and Connection: Where It Begins
Your body responds to the way you treat her. If you’ve spent years picking her apart, criticizing her shape sexual function, shaming her desires, or silencing her needs, she will respond in kind. Disconnection breeds numbness.
Confidence is a key to arousal. The more you trust your body, the easier it is to surrender to pleasure. And surrender isn’t passive, it’s the most courageous thing you can do in a world that’s tried to make you distrust your own sensations.
The Power of Self-Exploration in Sexual Fulfillment
If you’ve never explored your body, how can you guide anyone else to truly know her? Self-exploration and solo genital stimulation is where you can discover the textures, rhythms, and sensations that awaken your unique sexual response, including the potential for a vaginal orgasm.
Through solo practices, you can begin to learn your body’s language; a language rooted in desire, sensitivity, and truth. When you understand this language, you can reclaim your voice not just in intimacy but in every area of your life. You can say, “This is what I need,” and mean it, unapologetically.
If this feels new, or if you’re unsure where to start, we’ve created two resources to guide you:
Slow Self-Pleasure Mini Guide: Learn how to explore your body with intention, letting your touch become a meditative, pleasure-filled practice.
Self-Yoni Massage Mini Guide: Dive deeper into connecting with your pussy, releasing tension, and awakening sensation through the sacred practice of yoni massage.
Both guides are designed to help you create a safe, nurturing space to explore your body at your own pace.
Ready to begin?
Incorporating Sexual Wellness Tools
Pleasure Wands
The world has taught you to rush, toward orgasm,
toward performance, toward pleasing someone else!
Orgasmic challenges are often rooted in disconnection: tension in your vaginal walls, pelvic bowl, numbness in areas that are supposed to feel alive, or a simple lack of familiarity with your own body’s needs. While you may have learned to rush toward orgasm, performance, and pleasing someone else, a pleasure wand invites the opposite.
It asks you to slow down, breathe, and really feel. It gives you permission to explore your inner landscape without judgment or expectation.
What Makes Pleasure Wands Powerful?
Open to Sensation. Blood flow is essential for arousal, and pleasure wands are designed to stimulate circulation in your pelvic area. With this increased blood flow comes warmth, sensitivity, and a gentle awakening of places you may have forgotten.
Exploring Erogenous Zones: Many women struggle with orgasm because they haven’t had the chance to explore what truly feels good. A pleasure wand helps you discover new areas of sensation, including deeper parts of the vaginal canal like the G-spot or cervix, which can lead to vaginal orgasms.
Slow Down. In a world that rushes everything, a pleasure wand invites you to take your time. It shifts the focus from orgasm as a goal to sensation as a journey. It teaches you that pleasure isn’t something you achieve, it’s something you allow.
Yoni Eggs
Awaken the parts of you that may have gone quiet or numb.
Your pelvic floor is the energetic base of your feminine power and the foundation for your pleasure. A yoni egg helps you to consciously direct energy, attention, and tenderness to this space, awakening the parts of you that may have gone quiet or numb.
Using a yoni egg is a practice of deep presence. It’s about tuning into the subtle sensations of your pelvic bowl, feeling into the strength and softness of your muscles, and allowing stored tension to release.
Over time, this creates a shift where you become more attuned to your body’s cues, more open to receiving pleasure, and more connected to your own erotic potential.
How Yoni Eggs Transform Your Relationship With Your Body
Strengthen and Awaken: The muscles of your pelvic floor are responsible for the contractions you feel during orgasm. When these muscles are weak or disconnected, arousal and climax can feel out of reach. A yoni egg helps you gently engage and tone these muscles, building a foundation for deeper, more powerful orgasms.
Bring Awareness to Areas That Feel Numb: Many women experience numbness in their vaginal canal, often caused by trauma, disconnection, or a lack of attention to this space. A yoni egg invites you to focus on these areas, awakening sensation and helping you reconnect with parts of yourself that have been silent for too long.
Release What You’re Holding. Trauma, shame, or even years of ignoring your body can create emotional and physical blockages in your pelvic space, making it challenging to be present during self pleasure or sexual intercourse. The weight of the egg, combined with intentional breathing, invites you to let go of what no longer serves you.
Reawaken Your Feminine Energy: A yoni egg helps you connect with the wisdom and power of your pussy, reminding you that this part of your body is a source of life, creativity, and sensuality.
Conclusion
Everything you need to unlock your orgasmic potential already exists within you, it always has. This journey is about remembering who you are: a woman connected to her body, her pussy, and her truth.
Reclaiming your pleasure is an act of rebellion in a world that has tried to silence, shame, and disconnect you from your own power. It’s about saying, “I am worthy of feeling, worthy of joy, worthy of experiencing the pleasure my body is capable of.”
Remember, orgasm isn’t something to chase, it’s something to allow. It’s the natural response to a body that feels safe, seen, and free to express itself fully.
So take the time to explore. Use tools like yoni eggs and pleasure wands to help you meet yourself in new ways.
Speak your truth - whether to a partner, a friend, or just your journal. And most importantly, listen to your pussy. She will always guide you back to your deepest desires.
Try Our Viva La Vagina Course
Step fully into your erotic power
If you’ve been craving a deeper connection with your body, yearning to understand your pleasure, or feeling a pull to step fully into your erotic power, the Viva La Vagina™ 2.0 Membership was made for you.
This is a journey designed to peel back the layers of shame, disconnection, and self-doubt that have kept you from the pleasure and power that are your birthright.
This course holds space for you to rediscover yourself in ways you may never have thought possible.
Feel safe to explore: Whether you’ve never orgasmed or you’re looking to deepen your connection to your body, this course meets you exactly where you are. It’s a judgment-free zone where your experiences, desires, and truths are honored.
Break through barriers: Performance anxiety? Self-doubt? Sexual shame? The walls keeping you from your fullest expression will easily dissolve with the right tools, practices, and knowledge this course provides.
Ignite your body’s natural wisdom: With no need to force anything, you'll be supported to awaken what’s already inside you. You’ll learn practical, embodied techniques to move beyond mental blocks and into the sensual, radiant body you’ve always carried.