Women S Sexuality Questionnaire

Women’s Sexuality Questionnaire

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Dianne L. Chambless,1 University of Pennsylvania

Diane DeMarco, The American University

The Women’s Sexuality Questionnaire (WSQ) is a structured interview with rating scales devised to assess the frequency and subjective experience of female orgasm and activities leading to orgasm.

Description

To allow for rapport to be established, as well as to collect information on potentially confounding variables, the WSQ begins with 15 questions concerning demographics and the subject’s reproductive and genital health. The second section is devoted to a brief sexual history concerning masturbation and noncoital and coital sex with a partner. Information collected includes the subject’s age when beginning to engage in the activity under question, frequency, and techniques of stimulation. The third section is the heart of the questionnaire.

Questions concern the frequency of orgasm during various sexual activities in addition to scales asking subjects to rate the subjective quality of the orgasmic

1Address correspondence to Dianne L. Chambless, Dept. of Psychology,

University of Pennsylvania, 3815 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104-6196; e- mail: [email protected] experience and of the stimulation leading to orgasm. Information obtained in the first two sections allows the interview to screen for variables that would reduce the probability of orgasm, such as drugs, dyspareunia, or inadequate stimulation.

Although there are a variety of question formats, the major questions in Sections

II and III are on ordinal scales.