Last updated on May 3, 2025
Question:
Hello,
I hope you are well. How exactly do I know if I’ve had an orgasm? It may sound silly, but I’m honestly not sure if it has happened and what to do about it if it hasn’t.
Thank you.
Answer:
At peak sexual excitement, various things happen in your body. During sexual activity, your heart rate, blood pressure, and breathing rate increase. The sexual tension that had been building during sex suddenly releases. Hormones are released into your bloodstream that results in your vagina and uterus to contract rhythmically for several seconds. These contractions are important as they help move the semen released by your husband during his orgasm toward your uterus.
See:
- “Orgasm,” Cleveland Clinic, 9 May 2022.
- “Everything you need to know about orgasms,” Medical News Today, 31 March 2025.
Question:
Pastor,
Thank you so much for your willingness to help and provide counsel. I’ve been praying about sharing this and think I’m meant to. It’s hard for me to talk about these things—I wasn’t raised to speak openly about intimacy—but I’ve been carrying this confusion and longing, and reading your words made me feel like maybe it’s okay to bring it into the light.
I don’t think I’ve ever had an orgasm. I’m not even sure I fully understand what one feels like. I know my body reacts—my heart beats faster, but I don’t feel flushed and warm, and sometimes there’s this almost overwhelming sense of shame—and it never builds into what people seem to describe. It just sort of stops. Maybe this comes with time, but I also wonder if I’m doing something wrong or if something’s missing in me.
We’re still early in our marriage, and I’ve been trying so hard to be a good wife—to give, to love well, to stay open—but I still feel shy about some parts of me. I’ve always been self-conscious about how I look down there. I don’t look like what I see in the diagrams. My husband commented once that I’m “hairier than him,” and I laughed at the time, but truthfully, it made me feel deeply embarrassed. I already feel awkward about my body in that area, and hearing that made me want to hide more. That’s part of why I have trouble relaxing and letting go.
More than anything, I want to be a mother. I can feel it in my bones—it’s one of those longings I’ve carried since I was little. I’ve been wondering, though: Is it true that not having an orgasm could make it harder to get pregnant? I’ve heard different things, and I’m unsure what’s real or just myths. It’s hard not to worry that maybe my body isn’t doing something it’s supposed to do, and that it might get in the way of the one thing I want most.
Thank you for being someone who makes space for conversations like this. I hope it’s okay that I shared all of this. It’s hard for me to be this open, but I’ve come to believe that sometimes honesty is a prayer, too.
Thank you.
Answer:
I believe that you are correct when you stated that your enjoyment of sex is hindered by not being able to relax in the moment. I don’t know of a perfect solution other than changing your focus from yourself and how you feel to using those times of intimacy to focus on your husband and helping him enjoy the experience. When you are not thinking about yourself, you will relax more. It is a corollary of what Paul stated: “The husband must fulfill his duty to his wife, and likewise also the wife to her husband. The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does; and likewise also the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does” (I Corinthians 7:3-4). In fornication, people focus on themselves, but intercourse in marriage is better because the two people are focused on what pleases the other person. Thus, marital sex is an act of giving and not taking.
Getting pregnant is not greatly affected by whether you have an orgasm. Your husband’s sperm swim and it only takes a few minutes for sperm to swim the length of the vagina. In addition, when your husband ejaculates, the semen comes out with enough force to easily reach the cervix (the entrance to your uterus). From that point, it is a question of whether enough sperm survive to reach an egg when you release one. Sperm can survive up to six days in your body. Therefore, the more often you have sex during the week before your egg is released, the higher the chances that you will become pregnant. The average couple, having regular sex, has an 85% chance of conceiving a child in one year. Another way to look at it, each month that you have regular sex, you have a 1 out of 5 chance of becoming pregnant.