In a recent study of young adults’ sexuality, Galinsky & Sonenstein (2011) discovered that when it comes to orgasms, men are having them a lot more often than women.
Nearly nine out of ten men in the study of 3,237 of young adults aged 19 to 25 experienced an orgasm most or all of the time. But only about 47 percent of the women in the study had an orgasm during a couple’s sexual relations.
Young women are also five times as likely as young men to have orgasms less than half the time they have sex with their partner.
The new research provides some interesting data that confirms previous research findings in this area, and sheds some additional light on young adult sexuality. There remains a sex gap not only in the enjoyment of sexual pleasure through orgasm, but also when it comes to oral sex.
The new research is based upon wave III of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health study, which is a nationally representative study of students who were in grades 7 through 12 in the 1994-1995 school year.
The data for the present study comes from the 2001-2002 time-frame, when 20,745 students were re-interviewed for wave III. The interviews took place in the person’s home, but for the sexually-intimate questions, the subjects heard the questions through an earphone and entered the questions directly into a computer.
After filtering out people who had not been in a relationship for at least 3 months, and taking a random subset of the remaining people, the researchers collected data from 3,237 young adults. Only people in opposite-sex relationships were considered, so these findings may not generalize to other types of relationships.
The researchers noted that while sexual pleasure cannot be measured purely in terms of orgasm, receiving or giving oral sex, these three components are highly valued in American culture (for better or worse). So they argue that measuring them is a good way to measure people’s sexual enjoyment.
In addition to the researchers’ other findings, some women are simply not having orgasms very often — especially when compared to men. The study found that 9 percent of women say they experience it less than half the time during a sexual encounter with their partner, and 6.4 percent they never or almost never have one (compared to about 1 percent of men).
Who Enjoys Oral Sex?
The sex gap is apparently not affecting women’s enjoyment of receiving oral sex much, because women enjoy oral sex nearly as much as men do — 84 percent of men say they “like it very much” compared to 71 percent of women.
But women don’t like giving oral sex to men nearly as much as men enjoy giving oral sex to women (or at least say they do). Only 37 percent of women said they enjoyed “very much” giving oral sex, while nearly 61 percent of men said they did.
Nearly 10 percent of women “dislike [giving oral sex] somewhat or very much,” compared to only 4 percent of men.
Psychological Traits Connected to More Sexual Enjoyment
The researchers were also interested in understanding what kinds of psychological traits are related to people’s enjoyment of sex. Three traits stood out — autonomy, self-esteem, and empathy.
They found that autonomy and self-esteem in women were highly correlated with increased sexual enjoyment. But because of the nature of the data, they couldn’t say independent women who have high self-esteem are more likely to experience increased sexual pleasure, or whether women who have the ability to enjoy increased sexual pleasure helps them be more autonomous and have higher self-esteem.
The researchers hypothesized that this may help youth overcome barriers to sexual communication and exploration:
[… B]ecause young women face more barriers, the achievement of sexual enjoyment might do more to boost the self-esteem and feelings of autonomy of young women as compared with young men.
Empathy was also an important component associated with a healthy and enjoyable sex life:
[… F]or both men and women, empathy is associated with all three types of sexual enjoyment. This is consistent with our hypothesis that empathic individuals are more responsive to their partner’s needs and thus initiate a positive feedback cycle.
So much research is focused on dysfunction and problem areas. There are very few large, population-based studies that look at how psychological traits can be associated with positive sexual health, such as sexual pleasure. This is one of the few studies that have shed more light on young adult sexuality, and helps us better understand the gender sex gap between men and women.
Reference
Galinsky, A.M. & Sonenstein, F.L. (2011). The association between developmental assets and sexual enjoyment among emerging adults. Journal of Adolescent Health, 48, 610-615.
6 comments
Only 3% of men are able to comment sensibly on articles regarding sex.
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http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/44579442
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You know, one of the most profound books I read on this topic was “The Female Brain” by Louann Brizendine. (“The Male Brain” was useful in contrast as well.) From this along with other understandings I take this. For women, oxytocine is more important then any other neurochemical. Meaning relaxation and concentration is imperative to an enjoyable sexual experience. Men on the other hand have a little more complicated situation being driven by testosterone. They need to concentrate for be involved to remain “attentive” but distracted enough to control longevity.
That said, there seems to be one thing that both sexes share IF they are going to have a lasting enjoyable experience. That attribute is “trust”. We live in a 51% divorce rate, multiple partner and relationship, self serving, society where daddies teach their girls love by not being in their lives, and their boys that there is strength in conquest. Moms teach the girls all kinds of dysfunction self conscious traits. TV makes us all parinoid that we aren’t the right body shape, our boobs or penises are too big or too small, we won’t last long enough, get wet enough, or smell right. So many things to think about except what they should be concentration on, each other.
The quote from the book that I love the most is “A mans orgasm starts 5 mins after sex starts, a woman’s orgasm starts 24 hour before.”
through my own sexual experience it has occurred to me that much like anything in life you can only get what you give out of it. i apologize if I’m to descriptive or maybe lack tack but if a girl lays on her back and lets the man do everything it is not very likely she is going to have an orgasm. women who participate in sex by actually doing something find sex far more enjoyable than those who seem to think all they need to do be is there. i have been with women who i need to encourage to do what they are thinking and it is only then that they start to enjoy themselves. I’m not blaming women entirely I’m sure that there are men that are just not satisfactory lovers but i truly believe that no matter how good or bad a man is in bed he can’t do it alone. express your selves ladies tell us what you want, do what you want and you will find you have an orgasm far more frequently.
Well I can’t say anything from the male perspective on this subject but I most definatly can from the female stand point. I am a 21 year old mother of three, my children are ages 10 moths, 1, and 2. If that doesn’t say somthing about me and my husbands sex life then I don’t know what would. We have sex frequently dispite the situation, and yet ill be honest never once have ever had an orgasm during intercourse, or even through oral. This by all means does not indicate this I don’t enjoy sex, I don’t think I could handle life with out it. On the flip side I’ve found that giving him oral helps (for lack of better word choice) the hormones rage. Its not so much that a female is into the ideah of having a male apendage in her mouth its more of the males reactions. When a woman can feal that man is enjoying her and she can hear as well as believe it she is more capable of letting go and enjoying herself. This is my own personal experience but through time of trying to figure out what could make me tick this has been working. For women they need to feal comfterble, the best way to that is for the man to let go and do all the natural things that say HEY BABY YOU ROCK MY WORLD. Also one thing to keep in mind is that when a man tells a woman in the middle of sex to do what will make her feal good or do what she’s thinking could put her on the spot, and make her feel insicure and embarresed. Then what ever chance there was for her to climax went down the drain. Age very well could be the culprate of there lack of orgasm in females, or better yet lack of maturity. Other facters need to be cosidered as well. For example in this busy body world what happend to forplay, I’m not saying the type that you need to go out and buy expensive ascessories and apperel just to read instructions for an hour and fall out of the mood with nothing but a hole in your wallet. I’m talking good old fashioned pillow talk with light touches, warm embraces…. u get the ideah. Think back to some of the first expierences you had with your partner. Those were the best times for most of us out there. The good old fashion forplay. Will work everytime. A combo of good memories, with good feaings and all the other fun stuff that comes with it. In my opiniun its envornmental things that cause some of this issue in women. From billboards to tv women find a reason to feal compromised in how they feal about themselves expessally young women. Women are under a lot of pressure, men to , but women are more psychological in nature when it comes down to sex. So before we go saying that the women needs to be more apt into getting in gear and cowboying up to what she desires (plus a good majority of the time women don’t have a clue in that aspect) take in to account the envornmental risk factores for the crash and burn oh no magick tonight. Again good old fashon forplay will remedy this, pillow talk is both flattering, flirty and healthy (plus all the inbetweens and in and out that come with it) So guys let go and let her feal like your queen so she can make u her king, and if all else fails go to the basics. I believe women don’t enjoy sex as much as men because of envoirnmental factores, as well as unsatified need for her ego, and psychological setbacks. There may also be age variables as well. I hope this was interesting and maybe somthing a little less vauge.
@krystal
Speak for yourself when you say most women dn’t know what they desire. You can’t throw all of us into a box like that. We’re just as sexual as men; and even some women who do know what they want and are emotionally connected to their men cannot orgasm. It’s different for everyone.
I would tell women to be completely in the momn during sex. Focus on your partner only, and shut everything else out. Then orgasms may come easier.
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