Nicki Minaj is feeling herself — and she's not afraid to talk about it.
In an interview with Cosmopolitan for the July 2015 issue, the rap icon came out as a crusader for women's orgasms everywhere. On the topic of her own bedroom habits, she unabashedly proclaimed, "I demand that I climax. I think women should demand that."
The best part? She added:
"I have a friend who's never had an orgasm in her life. In her life! That hurts my heart. It's cuckoo to me. We always have orgasm interventions where we, like, show her how to do stuff. We'll straddle each other, saying, 'You gotta get on him like that and do it like this.'"
"She says she's a pleaser," Minaj told Cosmopolitan. "I'm a pleaser, but it's fifty-fifty."
Minaj's candid statement about not only her right, but every woman's right, to an orgasm during sex isn't one we hear every day. Much like Minaj's "pleaser" friend, culture often tells women to prioritize a man's orgasm over her own orgasm during sex. After all, a male orgasm often is the signal that sex has ended between a heterosexual couple.
That kind of thinking is deeply harmful and one of the reasons we have an "orgasm gap." Here are just a few of the damning facts, according to the Daily Beast:
1. Women have an orgasm half the time men do during repeat hookups.
2. Women only climax a third of the time during first-time encounters.
3. About 75% of women need some sort of clitoral stimulation to achieve orgasm, but according to a Cosmopolitan survey, 38% of women aren't getting enough, and 35% aren't getting the right kind.
Getting all the way to orgasm during sex often requires a deep, unashamed conversation between a woman and the person next to her — which is why Minaj's approach is so powerful. Yes, everyone enjoys something different in the bedroom, and no two women are the same. But getting open and comfortable talking about your needs (even if just to your female friends, with a little straddling demonstration thrown in) is the first step to being vocal about them in bed.
The orgasm gap has the pleasure balance skewed. Minaj is reminding us that sex can and should be fifty-fifty. We've just got to start getting what's ours.
h/t Cosmopolitan
