“Prior to the mid to late 1990s, women’s and men’s sexual response were mostly viewed as complementary, as two sides of the same coin.

As such, multiple perspectives on women’s sexuality, including models of sexual response, the nature of sexual desire, and expressions and treatment of women’s sexual concerns, were thought to be identical to those of men, albeit embodied within differently sexed forms.”

—Meredith Chivers and Lori Brotto, “Controversies of Women’s Sexual Arousal and Desire” (Emphasis my own.)

Let’s all allow that to sink in.

Essentially, throughout the history of all time, we’ve spent all but the past 25 years expecting women’s sexuality to mimic men’s. Or, put another way, we’ve only considered women’s sexual response as distinct since the Spice Girls released, “Wannabe.”

Masters and Johnson are left holding a bit of the bag on this one. In 1966, they formulated a four-stage Sexual Response Cycle: Excitement, Plateau, Orgasm and Resolution. Even with adaptations, this linear view posits that sexual desire kicks off a launch sequence that soars through arousal and ultimately explodes into orgasm. It was pioneering work, no doubt, and it did NOT do an excellent job of accounting for women’s experiences.

More comprehensive models have since been developed, and we now acknowledge that many women don’t follow that line—but there remains dissonance between reality and long-held expectations of “the right way.” This includes our prizing of spontaneous over responsive desire.

It makes absolute sense, then, that plenty of humans are still experiencing women as “doing it wrong”—leaving many feeling broken, frustrated and lost. If, up until very recently, even the pros have been viewing women and men as sexually one and the same, everyone has been set up to follow a path that, in reality, aligns with only part of the population.

Felicitously, when it comes to finding our way to a path that does fit, the Spice Girls have been spot on all along…