To state the obvious, direct feedback from your partner trumps any advice you read online. If you’re waaaaaay off-base though, she can only attempt to dial you in so much before it becomes easier for her to pretend to enjoy it and get whatever pleasure she can from what you’re doing. If you’re at least in the ballpark to begin with, you have a much better chance of getting from there to something truly enjoyable.

So in that spirit…

1. The clitoris

When you’re touching a woman’s clitoris, imagine what feels good to your penis and shrink it down by a factor of 25. Take your basic penile stroke and divide by 25.

In other words, tiny movements. Not just the range of motion though. Also use only about 1/25th the amount of pressure. Pressing into a clitoris to a depth of a couple sheets of paper is like squeezing into your hard penis by about the thickness of a pamphlet or a magazine. It’s a lot of pressure. There’s a ton of highly sensitive nerve endings crammed into that tiny space.

Maybe also try moving 25 times slower than you would do to yourself. Again, just as a starting place.

To give you a sense of what it feels like when you touch her without the 25x adjustment factor, imagine subjecting your dick to a jackhammer, or sand paper. Too much.

So as a starting point, think of her clitoris as a tiny, ultra-sensitive penis and touch it accordingly. Then you are at least in the ballpark. Ask her what might make it better. Keep inviting her to give you honest feedback until she feels unabashedly at ease letting you know what she likes and what she wants.

2. The G-spot

The G-spot isn’t like a hidden button that, if you find it and push it, lights her up like a video game, causing her to come instantly and be eternally devoted to you. You will not master the G-spot by reading Cosmo or men’s magazines. There isn’t a secret ninja technique involved.

But here’s an analogy that might help you find your way.

Let’s start with some anatomy.

Search for images of the clitoris and you will see something vaguely wishbone-shaped. At the top is the glans, the touchable little pencil eraser we’re all familiar with. The rest of it is inside her body. (And is more like 10cm all together.) The clitoral shaft splits into two “legs” that run down either side of the vaginal canal. In principle you could gently reach inside her, carefully press into the deeper soft tissue, and pleasurably stimulate those nerve bundles.

You can get a vague sense of what this might feel like, and how to go about exploring it. Because your penis is similar. It doesn’t just stop right at the base, it extends into your body. The shaft continues on behind your balls and runs just underneath the patch of skin between your legs, from your scrotum to your anus.

When you’re hard, you can feel the rigid shaft in there. And stimulating it feels… interesting. I’m not talking about the skin, which is nothing like the skin on your penis. But further in, the shaft itself, feels kind of similar down there as it does above. You can press into it. You can kind of reach around either side and almost grab it. Etc.

And playing with it can produce a range of sensations from very pleasant, to neutral, to not so great, depending on what’s being done. So let’s say your partner is sucking your cock. If she starts exploring this lower shaft area at the same time, it can add a lot. It can potentially feel fantastic. Not guaranteed though. The two of you would need to explore together what feels good. She may have mastered this with a previous lover, sending waves of ecstasy through his body doing this, but it doesn’t matter, it’s going to be different with you.

Get it? It’s very similar with her G-spot.

3. Climax during intercourse

When you’re inside of her it feels great. Kind of hard to imagine how it could possibly not feel as fantastic to her as it does for you. Aren’t you basically rubbing the same analogous parts against each other, her vaginal canal and your penis? They’re so perfectly matched for each other, aren’t they innie and outie equivalents?

Well as it turns out, no.

Let’s take a look at how our sex organs begin to form while we’re still in the womb. For awhile in the beginning, they’re neither male nor female. After the first couple months the hormones kick in, and the genitals start to differentiate into either male or female. There’s a tiny nub, a small patch of tissue, that will grow to become either a penis, or a clitoris.¹ And another area that develops into either the labia, or the scrotum. And so on. These are called homologous body parts.

The point is, your penis is not homologous to her vagina. The area that on her grows and becomes the uterus and vaginal canal, on you shrinks and more or less disappears.

So yes, having you inside of her feels good, and for some women it feels really really good, but not in quite the same way that it feels to you. Most of her sensitive parts are in and around the opening, not deeper inside of her.

Imagine having your scrotum gently fondled. Feels good. Might feel really good. Maybe there are even some guys who could climax from that alone. Generally speaking though, it’s not the primary get-off area for you.

Well it’s like that with women and penetration. Her vaginal canal is just not anatomically where her primary get-off nerve endings are, though it might feel good or great in its own right.

If you want sex to feel as good to her as it does to you — and chances are you do — pay attention to the clitoris. That’s a good starting place.