If I was to ask you for a straightforward definition of ‘pleasure’, you might say something along the lines of, “Well, pleasure is something, any feeling, that feels good.” If I asked more specifically about sexual pleasure, you might then say, “Sexual pleasure is anything that feels good in the genital region.”

While this is as good a definition as any, it misses how expansive sexual pleasure can be and limits it not only to the body but to a particular part of the body. When we speak of sexual pleasure, we tend to refer to the physicality of pleasure, to the biological functions that enable and evidence pleasure, and almost exclusively to the renowned pinnacle of pleasure—the orgasm.

This is a problem when, for women especially (but not exclusively), pleasure begins on the mental and emotional planes which in turn facilitate the conditions for physical ecstasy. And the mental and emotional planes are partially cultivated by our social and cultural contexts. Let’s begin with what we think we know about pleasure.

What we think we know about sexual pleasure

On one level, we experience pleasure through the senses of our body: the feeling of our skin being touched, a body that we find pleasing to the eye, a sound that is soothing or exciting, the lingering scent of our partner’s shampoo. The physical experiences of pleasure are the ones most apparent to us—after all, we experience life through our bodies.

There is something so tangible about a bodily experience. Somehow coming to know something in our bodies makes us sure of it. However, humans are not simply creatures of the flesh. We are deeply emotional, intellectual, and social beings, and our very human sexualities are no different.

Unfortunately, most people do not experience pleasure objectively through the self-assured knowledge of our body. Sexuality and sexual pleasure are embedded in social and cultural contexts that teach us how to think about pleasure and which pleasure experiences are right, legitimate, and normal. Our sexual bodies are wrapped in meanings that we inherit from the social world around us.

To illustrate, I want to use an analogy from Dr Emily Nagoski’s groundbreaking book on female sexuality entitled Come As You Are.

"When you are born, you are given your own little garden. The soil of the garden is rich with nutrients, and you have a mixture of patches that get plentiful sun and shade, and rain is never in short supply. You can plant whatever you wish in your garden, and it will grow. However, when you are growing up, other people plant seeds in your garden before you have a chance.

Your parents, teachers, friends, the media, and religious leaders plant seeds. Once you start thinking about engaging in sexual activity and are ready to plant some flowers, you realise your garden is full of alien plants whose roots seek to dominate and weeds that multiply when you try to plant your own seeds.

These alien plants and weeds are the messages about sexuality and pleasure we receive from our cultural and social contexts. These messages tell us that sexual pleasure is only allowed for some bodies and in certain conditions. For example, dominant discourses about sex tend to reserve righteous pleasure for heterosexual people in monogamous relationships, for male bodies more than female bodies, for intercourse rather than masturbation, for the sole purpose of reproduction and in moderation for women (in other words, women should not be sleeping around).

The nature of the messages varies from culture to culture and affects people differently, but nonetheless, they constrain how much pleasure we believe we deserve to experience and too often obstruct our path to pleasure."

But remember, pleasure is our birthright. As a love and sexuality educator, researcher, and advocate, I am here to remind you that you deserve sex that is joyous, playful, pleasurable. I want to deconstruct and reimagine how we think about sexual pleasure, how we talk about it (or don’t), how to go about experiencing more of it, and how to recognise when we are being denied (or denying ourselves) of it. This article draws on my own original research with sex therapists as well as the wonderful works of other sex educators, researchers, and authors.

(Inspired by the wonderful work of Dr Emily Nagoski in Come As You Are.)