Ribbed for Her Pleasure on the Interwebs: F'd Up Shit

Last post I wrote about 'Ribbed For Her Pleasure' condoms and how ridiculous it is to believe that the ribbing on those condoms could help out in any way with her orgasm - which I argue is part of what is meant by and understood in the word 'pleasure.' I explain it in the post HERE, but basically the big point is that rubbing and/or pressing against the vaginal wall, like a penis does during itercourse is not something that sensibly seems like it should cause orgasm based on, you know, anatomy, ALSO, no orgasm has ever been physically recorded in scientific literature from this kind of stimulation. That's just the truth, and so it's plain bonkers to assert that a little texture on the condom surrounding the penis would somehow increase the non-existent chances of banging the vaginal wall into an orgasm. Like I said, I discuss this (and inside-out penises in case you're interested) more in the original post.

Why I'm writing this post, however, is because I saw some funny/sad/poignant things in a couple of the websites I found while writing that other post. I was just looking around for what kinds of things people were saying about ribbed condoms, and there they were. I would have liked to sprinkle them into the original post, but I also wanted to keep that post short and sweet (which for me is still fairly long and not that sweet).

Anyway, that's why we're here so let me just share a few of these.

11 Ribbed and Textured Condoms That’ll Actually Get You Excited About Condom Shopping

This is a online Cosmo article by Carina Hsieh from June 27, 2019

It's tagged with "You'll never go back to regular condoms after this." You probably will, though. Firstly because ribbed condoms are bullshit, but also because this article is almost completely just a list of different ribbed condoms with a description of what they look like and their prices. There's no testimonials or anything that in any way work to convince you that ribbed condoms are somehow an extra great way to do intercourse. It's like a big advertisement for all the condom companies that advertise on the Cosmo website.

To be fair though, she does lead in with a tiny bit of a generic ad for ribbing in general. It's not enough to convince anyone to buy ribbed condoms, but it is enough to be completely weird and incorrect.

So it's in the very first lines of the very first paragraph of the article. It's the only discussion of ribbing that's not basically just descriptions of texture and the first line is this:

"Since most women orgasm from clitoral stimulation, not penetration alone, every extra bit of friction can only help you in that regard. While ribbed condoms might seem like a gimmick, the texture and added friction on the surface can actually provide some clutch clitoral stimulation to bring you to orgasm."

This is bonkers to me, not surprising or unique or really even backward in relation to other orgasm writing, but still bonkers. So, let's break this down.

THE GOOD

She acknowledged that most women need clit stim to come. Much appreciated, but honestly that is basic. It really should be just baseline knowledge for a sex-writer - particularly in a woman's magazine - because in surveys this is consist, and it's kind of an undeniable truth. Unfortunately, many pieces of writing don't even acknowledge that, but it is customary for any progressive lady-sex writing to mention it.

THE BAD

However, like almost all of, even quite progressive, writing on lady-gasm, the writing up there also leaves that sense that still some women do orgasm from just vaginal stimulation alone (which is not an anatomically or evidence based thought and probably isn't true). It also seems to insinuate that ribbing helps women who only orgasm clitorally to become more orgasmic through penetration alone. It doesn't say how in any sensible way, and thus seems to me to have no actual, concrete idea of how orgasm physically works. That's a problem, but it's also just weird.

THE INCOMPREHENSIBLE

So, how exactly will "every extra bit of friction help you in that regard?" What regard? The regard that I can't orgasm from penetrations?

Also, how exactly is the texture on the condom supposed to provide any "clutch clitoral stimulation?" Condoms work the vagina, not the clit. Is the condom covered dick going to pop out and start rubbing the clitoral glans?

And, riddle me this? If a woman can't come from penetration alone, but the 'texture and added friction' on a condom, which we can only assume will be touching her during penetration is supposed to help her come, is the insinuation that she (and maybe all women) actually can come from penetration alone - but only if she has enough friction?

Is that the regard this is helping us in? And if so, are we ladies supposed to assume that ribbing is some magic thing that somehow gives us the clitoral stimulation we need without actually touching our clit, thus allowing us to have our clit orgasms but somehow magically through penetration? If you think about it at all, it's a confusing nonsensical mess of a statement up there.

THE REASONING, MAYBE?, THAT IS ALSO INCOMPREHENSIBLE

My best guess is that she's referring to the hip new (and scientifically unfounded idea) that women can come from penetration clitorally because the penis sort of presses through the vaginal walls against the clitoral legs that are on either side of the vagina. There are a couple scientific studies on this that people like to reference (with individuals and with a couple), that neither prove orgasms can happen from penetration alone nor prove that pressing the clitoral legs might cause an orgasm at all. However it suggests it maybe, might, possibly, could be the cause of vaginal orgasm (which, let's be reminded, is not even an 'orgasm' that has actually been identified physically) and that's been enough to allow anyone and their mama to believe that clitoral leg pressing through the vagina during banging is the proven way that these 'vag-gasms' happen. This explanation of a 'type' of orgasm that hasn't even been observed has taken over for the g-spot explanation that was equally silly but just as popular through the 80's up until a few years ago.

Point is I don't know what this writer is getting at because even if she has this clit-leg mechanism in mind, texture on the condom ain't gonna help because it's about pressure not tactile sensation. 

The clitoral glans and surrounding tissue (which is what needs to be stimulated for a woman to orgasm) is very much not the inside of the vagina, and that statement up there is very much confused about anatomy and what is physically needed for a woman to orgasm, but it's also not surprising because most people, even progressive sexperts, are confused about that. It doesn't make it any less bonkers though.

BUT, I STILL LIKE COSMO

Now, I know Cosmo is traditionally an easy target for harsh, sarcastic feminist critique. It's seen as dumb and irrelevant (and sometimes hilarious) when it comes to sex advice, but that is not my take. Honestly, I think minus some of the more wildly hilarious position suggestions, it's sensibility is right on par with the larger culture and even the sex-positive culture. You know; Sex is good. You should not fake. Most women need clit stimulation, but coming from getting banged is a thing.

Cosmo is not much different from any sex positive sexpert - even though the progressive sex writers would love to believe they are. None of them really get that there is no reason to believe a 'vaginal orgasm' exists and tend to just (maybe unintentionally) reinforce that vaginal orgasms are attainable and sometimes even desirable. In fact, I would actually say that one of the best clit-focused sexpert writing I've seen is from Jill Hamilton doing Cosmo Sex Position Lists. She gets it and tries her damnedest to point out that women need clitoral glans area stimulation to come. So, I'll go ahead and say I'd like to see better from Cosmo because I know they can do it.

Are Ribbed Condoms Worth It? An Experiment

A BroBible article written by Aimee Porter about 6 years ago

The article was about the writer Aimee seeing ribbed condoms in the pharmacy by chance and realizing that she's been off condoms for so long that she had missed this boom of 'for her pleasure' products out there. She wondered if they really work.

If you’re banging, you know condoms are a necessary evil (use them or get herpes!). And I imagine there are many of you who have been suckered into ponying up for the ribbed stuff in the hopes that it’ll send your girl into mind-blowing orgasms the likes of which she’s never previously known. So, are those orgasms even possible? Right then and there, I decided to find out.

So, for this article, she bought a pleasure pack and enlisted her boyfriend to help her try them out. He wasn't excited about it, but he did it. There were 4 types, 3 ribbed styles and one warming lube. The first ribbed one was so not-ribbed she could barely feel the ribbing with her fingers when she ran them across it, so she didn't even bother. She tried the 2nd, The Sensations, and then during the intercourse switched it to the 3rd, The Intense.

The Intense had even more ribs than the Sensations, but yet, I didn’t get much of anything from it, either. At that point, my boyfriend came, so we tabled the Warming condom for later review. But I couldn’t help but feel extremely disappointed. Would any of these things make me feel something other than just, you know, gettin’ banged?

They later tried the heated lubricant one and it burned her vag - so they stopped.

I was down for the count. I tried to give my boyfriend a handjob as a consolation prize, but after a while he told me to stop. It was clear my heart just wasn’t in it. (Can you blame me? My lady parts had just been pan-seared!)

So, for her this condom test continued her tradition of unorgasmic banging and dialed in somewhere between meh and burned vagina. But how did her boyfriend describe his ribbed condom experience after he busted nut in one up inside her?

And for the record, what did my boyfriend feel? “I felt like I was having sex with a condom on,” he said. “It sucked.”

Really? fucking your girlfriend until you came 'sucked'? Really? That's how this dude would describe it?

Let me just put that into perspective. A woman has sex, ribbed condom or not and unfortunately she still does not "feel something other than just, you know, gettin’ banged?" - i.e. she doesn't orgasm condom, ribbing, or bareback. But, yeah, HIS experience sucked. She gets a penis rammed in her over and over, week after week through a long term relationship and NEVER COMES. EVER. But, he has to put a condom on his dick while he rams it in her, and as it always is, week after week through a whole long-term relationship, it's arousing and stimulating enough the his pelvic muscle spasm in orgasm and his penis spurts out semen in ejaculation, but "It sucked."

That my friends says, so, so much about the male vs. the female experience of sex. How desperately low lady expectations are, how strangely normal it all seems for women to have sex with no orgasm, and how invisible this insanely striking difference is for someone with a penis.

Ladies, we need higher expectations. We deserve our partner to feel so bad after they stop sex before we orgasm because their penis is burning that they come back from the bathroom to give us a half-hearted handie too.