Life

This Is How Often You Should Orgasm, According To Experts

by Lindsay E. Mack

Although it's one of the most natural things in the world, the whole female orgasm subject still has a lots of myths and mysteries. Telling fact from fiction can be quite the challenge. So to be super blunt for a moment, how often should you orgasm as a woman? This seemingly simple question has a lot of answers.

First, orgasms do offer a ton of potential health benefits. Natural pain relief is one advantage. "You have to have an orgasm, because when you have that orgasm, it releases the surge of five times more oxytocin, and then that releases the morphine-like endorphins that null and void the nerve endings that are creating the pain,” said sex therapist Dr. Ava Cadell in The Doctors. And orgasms can even have a positive effect on mental health as well. "Sex elevates our mood through the release of hormones and endorphins it causes in our brain. It increases oxytocin (a love and bonding hormone,) serotonin (a happiness hormone) and dopamine levels. These help us experience feelings of love, connection and happiness,” said sexologist Isiah McKimmie in the New York Post. So because orgasms have such positive mental and physical benefits, is there a set recommended amount you should aim for in a given time span? You know how much water to drink in a day and how much exercise to get in a week, after all. It kind of makes sense to extend that level of self care to the sexual realm as well.

Rob Stothard/Getty Images News/Getty Images

As with so many topics, though, the answer to the orgasm frequency question depends on who you ask. "Women should be having three orgasms a week as a minimum," said Andrea Pennington, author of The Orgasm Prescription for Women, in NZ Herald. She further elaborated on the benefits such as stress relief that can be enjoyed from the orgasmic experience. And it looks like some people top this recommendation and then some. One woman claims to enjoy 11 orgasms a day as part of her meditation practice, as noted in HuffPost. On the other hand, an estimated 10 to 20 percent of women have never experienced orgasm, as gynecologist Dr. Sherry A Ross said in the Independent. How are you supposed to figure out an ideal frequency for orgasms when the information about them is all over the place? There's a pretty big gap between "about a dozen times a day" and "basically never."

Thankfully, many women's health experts don't have a set number of orgasms every woman should try to achieve each day, week, or month. It's a more nuanced, individual idea. "The discussion should be about pleasure,” said certified sexuality educator Logan Levkoff, Ph.D. in HuffPost, “[and] the importance of understanding your own pleasure.” In other words, you don't have to count orgasms the way you count steps every day. Really, you should orgasm (or not) as often as it makes you happy and works with your life. Whether it's solo or with a partner, orgasmic or not, regularly making time for pleasure in your life is the key.