What do the terms angling, rocking, shallowing and pairing mean to you? We’re definitely not talking about fishing here. They all describe sexual positions which make things more pleasurable for women.

Until now these techniques have had no official names, but a new study aiming to normalise sex and make it easier for women to ask for what they want is hoping they’ll help to close ‘the orgasm gap’. Just 20% of women report being able to orgasm from penetration alone during sex, a statistic completely at odds with the dizzy heights of pleasure we so often see women easily reaching on screen.

Woman’s Hour spoke to Dr Devon Hensel, one of the study’s authors, and sex and relationships expert Tracey Cox to find out more about angling, rocking, shallowing and pairing…

“There’s such a lack of accessible language for women to talk about what they want and articulate that to their partners,” says Dr Devon Hensel, an assistant professor in Sociology at the University of Indiana School of Medicine and the co-author of this new study.“Imagine not having the language to describe what you want in other parts of life? Not being able to say, ‘I want more coriander with my guacamole’ or ‘I want more whipped cream on my hot chocolate’?”

This study – which spoke to 4000 women in the US and was published in the science journal Plos One – is all about making that sexual language more accessible for women, so they can talk about what works for them.

“Sex research as a field has been around for well over 100 years and it was really incomprehensible to us as researchers that there were not names for these things. And when something is unnamed, it almost becomes unspeakable,” Devon told Emma Barnett.

“These are very women-centred positions, so this empowers women and puts the onus or the emphasis back on what she can do.”

Angling

Angling refers to a woman moving her pelvis; so rotating, raising, or lowering her pelvis or hips to adjust the angle at which either the penis, sex toy or finger is penetrating the vagina.

Rocking

This refers to rocking the base of a penis or sex toy so it rubs against the woman’s clitoris consistently, rather than with an in and out motion. It’s an idea of consistent pressure.

Shallowing

Shallowing refers to penetrative touch – from either lips, a tongue, a penis, fingers or a sex toy – but just inside the entrance of the vagina, so a shallow entrance.

Pairing

This refers to a woman herself, solo pairing or with a partner (known as partner pairing). She reaches down to stimulate her clitoris with a finger or a sex toy at the same time that her vagina is being penetrated.

Why do these positions work so well?

“It’s all consistent with trying to stimulate the inner clitoris, because this is the problem,” says author and sex and relationships expert Tracey Cox.

“People think of the clitoris as the little tip that you can see, but in fact, underneath the clitoris is the body, which is about 1-2 inches, then it wishbones into two legs that are about 3-4 inches.

“So, the clitoris is a big area. If you try and just stimulate the tip, you’re not going to get very far. But if you try and stimulate the inner clitoris, which is what this is all doing, it can then lead to an orgasm for women, or at least make penetration a hell of a lot more interesting and pleasurable.”

Why’s this so important?

“Women still continue to believe that there’s something wrong with them if they don’t orgasm just through ‘normal intercourse’,” says Tracey, “and by that, I mean traditional thrusting, which is quite frankly pathetically ineffective at stimulating the clitoris.

“The amount of women I speak to and explain, ‘only 20% of women can orgasm through penetration without extra clitoral stimulation’… You can see them thinking, ‘yeah, but there’s something wrong with me, because whenever I watch TV or movies, or porn, women have intercourse orgasms no problem at all.’ Or ‘my partner says, ‘well, Susie before you didn’t have a problem.’ Some people just don’t accept that it is difficult for women to orgasm through penetration.”

“Women across the spectrum of life, whether they are in their 20s, their 40s, newly partnered, unpartnered, multi-partnered, every woman is on a sexual pleasure journey,” adds Devon. “So here are some tools to help you move your pleasure forward.”

“Just make it part of everyday conversation,” advises Tracey. “If we were talking about anything else today, you’d say, ‘I was listening to Woman’s Hour and they were talking about this. What do you think?’ Just have that conversation. Say ‘they did a really interesting study about how to make penetration more pleasurable for women and this particular technique really spoke to me, and I think I kind of do that already, but…’ And then lead into the conversation from there.

“Once you get passed those first few minutes, talking about sex is actually quite easy after that. Maybe it might be a bit uncomfortable with your partner who says, ‘But hang on a minute, you’ve always been fine just with penetration without any extra stimulation?’. If you don’t want to say, ‘well actually, I haven’t been the whole of the time I’ve been with you’ – just say, ‘well, I think my body’s changing, I seem to need different things now.’

But don’t wait until you’re trying to have sex to talk about it!

“You should talk about sex before you’re actually having sex,” says Tracey, “because people are listening properly for a start, and it’s far less threatening.

“If suddenly you say to your partner, ‘actually, I don’t like you doing it this way, I prefer you doing it another way,’ people can get really funny. They’re very sensitive, they get offended very easily. It’s like, ‘Oh, you don’t like what I’m doing then.’ And suddenly you’re in the middle of a row, rather than having sex.

“Wait until you’re getting on well, bring out something like this [article] and say, ‘I was reading something’, ‘I found something out today’, ‘I read a study…’. The more we talk about sex in everyday life – and talk about it in little bite-sized conversations, rather than ‘Honey, we need to sit down and talk about sex’ – the easier it is.”