We’ve all been told a story about sex: It should be effortless, mutual, and always end in fireworks. But for women, the reality rarely matches the script.

When it comes to sexual activity between men and women, women orgasm far less often than men. Researchers even have a name for this: the orgasm gap.

Surveys consistently reveal a 30-point gap: most men climax nearly every time, while women’s odds are much lower. Decades of glossy headlines promising “moves to make her scream” haven’t closed the gap one bit.

Studies show some people chalk this up to women’s orgasms being more complicated. But if that were true, the numbers wouldn’t swing so dramatically depending on the situation. But study after study shows women climax more often on their own than with a partner. In other words, when women take matters into their own hands, they don’t struggle to orgasm.

The numbers drop when a partner enters the picture, but even then, context matters. In a study of college women, just 11 percent reported climaxing in a first-time hookup, compared to 67 percent during sex in committed relationships.

Women also orgasm more when having sex with other women. In one study, 64 percent of bisexual women said that they usually or always orgasm when being sexually intimate with other women. And in a large U.S. study, 86 percent of lesbian women reported usually or always orgasming during sex, compared with just 65 percent of heterosexual women

In every context where women orgasm more often, there’s one key difference: more attention paid to the clitoris. And that makes sense because research shows most

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