Rachel Bilson made headlines for 'finally' having an orgasm 'during sex' at 38. I hate the way we put penetrative sex on a pedestal.

• Rachel Bilson recently said she didn't have an orgasm from intercourse until she was 38.
• Many news outlets described Bilson as only recently having an orgasm "from" or "during" sex.

Speaking with Whitney Cummings for her "Broad Ideas" podcast, Rachel Bilson said she'd never had an orgasm through sexual intercourse until she was 38. This admission set off a news cycle in which the likes of Page Six, BuzzFeed, and Glamour bemoaned the fact that the "O.C." actor didn't experience an orgasm "from sex" or "during sex" until her late 30s. Some surmised that — wink wink, nudge nudge — she was dating Bill Hader at that time.

These sorts of reactions make my brain explode. As Vice pointed out, a lot of women — including Bilson, until recently — don't orgasm during vaginal intercourse. But the widespread coverage suggests it's some crucial sexual milestone.

This is not the first time I've seen the "vaginal orgasm" framed this way, but I rarely see reasoning about why it's so important. After all, there are a lot of ways to have an orgasm — through oral sex, manual sex, and solo masturbation, just to name a few. So why do we spend so much time worrying about achieving an orgasm through a method that, by many accounts, has such a low rate of return?

The problem with putting penetrative sex on a pedestal

Penetrative, penis-in-vagina sex is not uncommonly framed as the be-all and end-all. But reducing sex to this one particular act is not merely silly — it's patently harmful.

It undermines the intimacy of couples who don't have this kind of sex, including those who aren't cisgender and heterosexual or who don't engage in penetrative sex for other reasons. In this case, it also asks us to pity women for not achieving some mythical and supposedly more "valid" type of orgasm. The implication is that there is a hierarchy inherent in sexual acts and orgasms and that the methods that more commonly lead many to climax are lesser than.

This sort of thinking is not limited to media coverage of sex — it plays out in real life, too. Once, after I had an orgasm during vaginal intercourse, a male partner told me, "I really like that you had an orgasm during sex." As far as I was concerned, the orgasms I'd previously had with him purely through clitoral stimulation also happened "during sex," and I'd been satisfied with all of them. But putting such an orgasm on a pedestal only stirred up feelings of shame when I didn't get off during intercourse later on.

Orgasms from penetrative sex can be amazing — but they're not more important than any other kind

This is not to say that desiring orgasm from penetrative sex is always about conforming to hegemonic male desires or that all penetrative sex takes place in heteronormative constraints. For those who've experienced sexual trauma or deal with conditions like vaginismus, it may be validating to work toward experiencing penetrative sex as pleasurable and orgasmic. It's not wrong to desire the experience of orgasm from penetrative sex, but for many it may be worth examining the root of that desire.

In my experience as a cis-het woman, I was never taught to interrogate my motivations for sex or center the acts I most enjoyed. I didn't consider for a long time that sex could be pleasurable at all or that I could have agency in making it so.

My sex education depicted sex as dangerous; outside the classroom I understood it as a way to validate my own desirability to others rather than a way to feel good in my own body. And back then, I understood sex to be solely penile-vaginal intercourse; everything else was foreplay to prime for the main event. Unsurprisingly, this led to a lot of unsatisfying sex, as well as situations in which partners disrespected my boundaries.

A note on sex without orgasms

This may go without saying, but orgasms aren't always the point, and it's possible to enjoy a sexual act without it neatly coming to a climax. Sex can also be about being present in our bodies or connecting with another person. And if something's a regular part of your sex but isn't enjoyable, it's worth asking why.

There doesn't need to be some definitive marker or end point for our pleasure to be valid. But this pressure to achieve an orgasm during intercourse paints sex as some box-checking ordeal, which can often make it harder to be present and experience the pleasure on offer in the first place.

Sex can really be whatever we define it as for ourselves. Enjoy your orgasms however you have them — there's a good chance you're already having them "during sex."