[This is an expansion of a brief comment on a good post at catholicintimacy.com.]
The answer to this question is simple: a wife’s sexual satisfaction is really important, and, fortunately, it should ordinarily not be a difficult problem to deal with, in a good marriage. But sometimes, in fact, it is.
One reason is that emotional connection is such a key factor in preparing a wife for sexual relations. If she doesn’t feel really loved, she will have a hard time responding sexually. And many men, unfortunately — because they don’t typically need this for their own sexual satisfaction — don’t understand this. If a wife feels really loved, and is not exhausted by daily life, she will usually be able to respond, and reach the climax she should properly have, with the proper stimulation.
For many wives, I think, oral foreplay (what I call “glossing“) is a very, very useful stimulus to orgasm, because it gives great, “soft” (tongue) stimulation directly to the clitoris. Some wives, out of a misplaced modesty, may feel reluctant at first to receive oral foreplay, but they can overcome that, especially if they know how much their husbands LOVE giving it!
I will mention, in passing, that there are a few, outlying moralists who harbor critical attitudes toward oral foreplay, on the ground that it is “unnatural.” This is very mistaken. There are no plausible moral objections to the tongue doing what the hand might do, in the context of a full and complete marital act.
If a wife is rested and emotionally prepared for marital relations, then oral foreplay will ordinarily result in a first orgasm, and be followed by another during sexual intercourse itself. And that wifely orgasm, as I have pointed out on this website, will enhance a husband’s sexual satisfaction immensely.
One caveat, though, regarding a wife’s sexual satisfaction: it would be a mistake to make orgasm a be-all and end-all, without which the act is automatically viewed as a sort of “failure.” It IS very important, and a husband should make every effort to make it possible for her to experience it in each marital act. But it’s worthwhile remembering that wives can often find a great deal of sexual satisfaction in loving marital intercourse even when it doesn’t result in orgasm for them.
Getting a Bit More Complex
Having said all that, I want to raise some issues that may complicate the matter of a wife’s sexual satisfaction. These issues are especially associated with some important gender differences.
Men are generally inclined to live their lives with a good deal of compartmentalization. That is one reason why a man can go from, one moment, having a testy conversation with his wife about something they disagree about to, the next moment, making love to her.
Women, in general, are less likely to compartmentalize their lives and more likely to integrate all the aspects of their lives. A woman’s life is like a tapestry that weaves together all different kinds of different colored threads into one whole.
This difference has a real impact on the conditions of sexual satisfaction for men and women. What I said above about “emotional preparation” refers especially to the emotional connection between a husband and wife. But there is a broader dimension as well: does a woman have a sense that “all’s right with the world”? If there are glaring, or smaller but persistent and ongoing, problems in her life — with her husband, with her children, with her job, with her friends, with her own body — this can create “tangles” in the tapestry of her life and make it difficult for her to appreciate the overall beauty of it.
A woman’s tendency to unify or integrate different aspects of her life — so often a very valuable quality — may lead her to feel periodically unhappy or anxious or out-of-sorts with life in general. And this can be an obstacle to the harmony that provides the best framework for opening herself to her husband’s desire and experiencing a trusting union with him. In this way, it can therefore be a real obstacle to her sexual satisfaction. “Something is wrong!” (This can provide a distinctive reading of the old fairy tale about The Princess and the Pea. Is there a sexual subtext to it: a woman can’t be “comfortable” in bed if something is out of order?!)
And, to top it off, a husband may be entirely clueless about this aspect of his wife’s life — perhaps seeing that she is bothered by something, but utterly unable to understand what that has to do with their making love!
(Men are not entirely without their own psychological issues, by the way. In some cases, for example, a man’s sexual life and his very ability to have or complete sex may become compromised by anxiety about his “performance” — one of the many contributing causes to erectile dysfunction.)
So, yes, in one sense we can say it shouldn’t be that hard to achieve a wife’s sexual satisfaction. But, depending on the broader contours of her life (how busy and tired she is, how happy with her circumstances, and especially with her spouse), and her temperament (especially if she has even a fairly normal tendency to some anxiety or depression, as many of us do), the issue can be much more complicated.
Moreover, a wife’s sense of “disharmony” may be a very plausible response to a husband’s insensitivity, his inability to see how much she needs his love, support, and sympathy. If she doesn’t feel the closeness of the bond with him, some women say, it can feel more like prostitution than marital lovemaking — just taking care of his “needs” (and his need is for sex, not for you!).
What this all suggests is that SO much of sex is above the neck — or, better perhaps, it is in the chest (and, men, that means the heart, not the breasts).