Sex advice with Suzi Godson: He keeps spoiling my rhythm in bed

Q. The way that my boyfriend makes love is stilted and jerky. He’s always trying to move into new positions, which breaks the flow for me and makes it less likely that I will have an orgasm. How can I broach the subject without hurting his feelings?

A. Don’t you just hate that? There is nothing more annoying than an inexperienced lover who feels the need to speed through every position in the Kama Sutra.

The average time it takes a man to ejaculate once penetrative sex begins is 5.7 minutes.

However, roughly one in three men suffers from premature ejaculation — regardless of age — which means that they orgasm within two minutes of intercourse beginning.

While I’m not suggesting that your boyfriend is a premature ejaculator, the stop-and-start approach that you describe is a well-known tactic to help men to last longer. Once intercourse begins, the pleasurable sensations begin to escalate.

As they get to the point where they are starting to roll towards orgasm, they withdraw and change position to allow the sensations to subside.

In a new position, they get into a different rhythm, feel the build-up and then switch again, and so on.

This pattern is great for your boyfriend because he experiences a series of undulating pleasure peaks, but every time he interrupts his own build-up he interrupts yours too, and while he gets to build on reserves of excitement, you generally have to start from scratch. Women find it more difficult to achieve orgasm during penetrative sex anyway, but it is particularly difficult if a woman can’t rely on her partner to provide consistent stimulation or, indeed, to have the wherewithal occasionally to put her pleasure first.

We all struggle with gender norms that tell us that men are “sexual” so they actively desire sex, whereas women are “sexy”, which means that we passively inspire arousal.

It’s an unhelpful construct because it makes it “unfeminine” to be sexually assertive and as a result there is a massive orgasm gap — on average, men have three orgasms for every one that a woman has. Where’s the fairness in that?

The patterns that emerge in sexual relationships don’t happen of their own accord and both partners are, to some degree, complicit in creating healthy or unhealthy sexual dynamics. For example, you describe a sexual relationship where your boyfriend determines the pace and dictates the positions.

Presumably, you don’t want to confront him because you are afraid of hurting his feelings and injuring his pride, but isn’t it worse to say nothing and never fully enjoy sex?

At the moment your boyfriend’s pleasure is the priority and until you tell him what you want, things are unlikely to change.

The good news is that getting to know the same sexual partner over time correlates with a reduction in the orgasm gap.

Ordinarily, 96% of men in established relationships always have an orgasm during sex, but research conducted by the sociologist Elizabeth Armstrong shows that when sexual activity includes oral sex for the woman, as well as self-stimulation of the clitoris and intercourse, 92% of women in committed relationships report having an orgasm every time they have sex.

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