Recently, condom brands such as Durexran marketing campaigns that shed light on an orgasm gap between heterosexual partners. While Skore’s survey found only one in three women experiences an orgasm in a sexual encounter, Durex estimated that 70% of women in India don’t orgasm every time during sex.

Research suggests one of the major reasons for this orgasm inequality is the belief that sex is always for reproduction rather than pleasure. Additionally,though society celebrates heterosexual men for indulging in casual sex, it shames women for the same, deterring them from “… asserting their sexual preferences confidently and making it difficult for men to learn to be receptive to their female partners’ needs,” as Rajvi Desai wrote in The Swaddle’s original report on the Durex campaign.

Though these brands’ marketing campaigns are about pushing products, they still highlight the lack of attention or care for women’s sexual pleasure. So, we asked women to tell us about their first orgasm experience in order to turn the spotlight on.

K.A., 28, Choreographer

I remember that day and the moment clearly. I had never heard the word ‘orgasm’ before, neither was anything about sex taught to me in school. I’d never even been into porn. But I do remember the first time everything felt so good. I was 16; I went for a bath after coming back home from school. I don’t know what I was thinking and I started playing with water from a hand shower. And in a few minutes, it started to feel tingly, like all the blood in my body was rushing in different directions, yet in one direction.

It was much later that I realized that I had given myself an orgasm — I’d say many years later — and it will always be a memorable one, my glorious first orgasm.

S.T., 26, Blogger

I had never masturbated. I didn’t know what an orgasm felt like or should feel like. I was 19 the first time my boyfriend and I had sex. I had snuckhim in while my parents were away for a vacation, but I was very scared that my house help would wake up and find us in the same room. So, we did everything in a hurry, and while he had an orgasm, I didn’t.

So, once he left, I was wondering why people (especially women) enjoy having sex when all it does is satisfy men. I ended up reading about it only to find out that there are a thousand different factors involved and only penetration wasn’t going to take me to places I had imagined. So, I read up about it, learned a lot about masturbation, and that’s when I discovered what a clitoris is. I felt like I had to touch it, to see what it makes me feel. I suddenly felt my body heat up and my heartbeat accelerate. I was shy to share this with my boyfriend initially or ask him to do it to me. So, I continued doing it to myself and, wow, every time, it feels heavenly.

But, let me add, I’ve overcome the shyness, and [now,] I demand things be done to me, and it’s such a liberating feeling.

Related on The Swaddle:

Heterosexual Sex Has a Problem: Half of the Participants Are Faking It

T.R., 36, Chef

My boyfriend and I were both 21 when we started dating. A couple of months in, when we both started getting comfortable with each other, we started with phone sex. He asked me whether I had masturbated and I had never even thought about it because it felt very icky to be touching or pleasuring oneself. In my head, it had to be done to me rather than me doing me. But he insisted that I touch myself. He said that he would never be able to please me if I didn’t know what to ask for.

So, both he and I asked each other to touch ourselves while talking on the phone, and at one point, I realized that massaging my clitoris was taking me into a different world. I kept going at it because I wanted to know where this ends, and in a while, I was experiencing an orgasm, a term I had heard, but never experienced before. And yes, sex after it was much more pleasurable and enjoyable, so I owe a little bit of my happy space to my boyfriend.

G.L., 45, Entrepreneur

I had been in relationships before but I was all about no sex before marriage. It was one of those fantasies, to be in a physical relationship only with the one I marry. So, when I did, for a very long time, sex felt like a chore. It was painful, it made my body ache, and nothing about it was pleasurable. I wouldn’t blame it on my husband, though. He was trying his best to be sweet about it. He kept asking me what I liked and what I didn’t, but when I didn’t know what made me feel good, how would I tell him anything? So we kept going at it, with him feeling pleasured each time we had sex, and me not feeling anything but happy that he had come.

I spoke to my best friend about it. She educated me about orgasms, and what it feels like if I were having one. I tried it myself first, and although I’m sad, I’m equally proud to say that I felt my first orgasm at 33. Yes, I had never known about an orgasm before. As much as I somewhere hold my husband responsible for not knowing what to do with it, I also can blame myself for not knowing my body. Lesson learned!

S.K., 27, Student

My first orgasm was from oral sex at 19. My boyfriend and I had been dating for a year, and we’d indulged in various things, but I had never felt as pleasured as I did from when he went down on me. He made me orgasm in such little time. I had heard very little about orgasming on oral sex from my friends, very few of them had positive outcomes from it, and I felt great about it, actually. It was a really good first experience; I still feel exhilarated when I think about it.