According to Osho, most male–female differences are cultural conditioning, not nature. The few real ones: woman bears life; she is innately more capable of love—seeking inner mystery, satisfied in monogamy—and her sexuality is total-body with potential multiple orgasms. Man’s love tends to be physical, restless, orgasm localized. Mature relating requires dropping domination, honoring her depth, and transforming sex into mindful, unhurried art.
Most differences are taught; truly, women carry life, love more deeply, and need unhurried whole-body intimacy, while men skew physical—so respect, patience, and equality make love real.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Beloved master, would you please explain what the real differences between men and women are?
The basic sperm shows all the qualities that will manifest later on. If you want a scientist it can be seen that this person is going to become one --or a great poet, or an engineer, or a doctor, or just a vagabond. So the accidental birth can disappear and a planned birth can take its place. It will just take a little time for stupid human minds to get accustomed to the new idea. But the mother will remain indispensable. They have tried experiments: they have given children all the facilities, medication, all the food... every perfection from different branches of science, but strangely the children go on shrinking and will die within three months. Then they discovered that the mother's body and her warmth is an absolute necessity for life to grow. That warmth in this vast cold universe is absolutely necessary in the beginning, otherwise the child…
Osho, are the questions of women and men different? And is there also a difference in the way they ask?
Certainly. It has to be. Because questions arise from within you. Questions bring news of you. Your question is your question; you will give it its structure, its style. Certainly women ask in one way and men in another. In my observation, first of all, women generally do not ask—that is their way. They ask with difficulty. They try more to understand, and less to ask. Men try more to ask, and less to understand. Since they ask more, the illusion arises that they must be understanding more. Since a woman asks less, the illusion arises that she must not be understanding—she doesn’t ask, does she? But the truth is exactly the opposite. Men come to me carrying a whole net of big questions. Often a man comes and I ask him, “Is there something you want to ask?” He says, “So much to ask—where should I begin? There is…
Beloved Osho, I thought I heard you say that if one goes deeply into sex it will eventually drop off by itself. I have thought long and hard about this, desperately trying to penetrate its hidden meaning, but all I got was a headache.
No medical researcher has come to the conclusion, but I say it from my own discoveries that I go on and on making -- I'm an incurable discoverer -- and sooner or later science will have to agree with me. The sex center exists in the head, not in the genitals -- that much science has come to know. And if the sex center exists in the head and not in the genitals, then sex deprivation can create a headache. It will not create genital ache because there is nothing... it is only an extension of a certain center in your mind. Why have people started thinking -- and doctors have started even advising their patients -- that sex is good for your mental health? And they are right: all the people who have repressed sex in the past in the name of religion, have suffered tremendously with headaches. Even…
Osho, yesterday you spoke about the feminine mystery of existence. Kindly shed more light on this subject in greater detail.
All the dimensions of existence can be divided into the feminine and the masculine. The division of woman and man is not merely a sexual division. In Lao Tzu’s vision, the division into feminine and masculine is the very dialectics of life, an essential part of life’s dialectical evolution. Man and woman differ not only at the level of the body; they also differ at the level of the mind. Wherever existence manifests, there the polarity of feminine and masculine will appear. But in understanding Lao Tzu, keep one thing in mind: the masculine is the transient form of existence, and the feminine is its eternal form. Like the wave that rises on the ocean—its rising is momentary. The ocean was there before the wave, and will be there after the wave. Femininity is the ocean of existence; the masculine is a passing wave. Hence the Judaic tradition that narrates…
Osho, then will there also be a difference in the spiritual practice of women and men?
There will be a difference. Less in the method of practice, more in the state of consciousness. Even if the practice is the same, even if the method is one, a man will go at it aggressively, and a woman will go to it receptively; a man will attack it, a woman will surrender to it. The practice may be one, yet their ways, their attitude, will be different. When a man goes, he will seize the practice by the throat; when a woman goes, she will place her head at its feet—at the feet of the practice. There will be a difference in their manner, in their attitude. And that much difference is natural. Beyond that, there is no question of any further difference. Her essential mood will be surrender. And when the ultimate attainment comes to her, she will not feel, “God has come to me”; she will…