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Women's Experience of Orgasm During Intercourse

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Women's Experience of Orgasm During Intercourse Arch Sex Behav DOI 10.1007/s10508-017-1102-6 ORIGINAL PAPER Women’s Experience of Orgasm During Intercourse: Question Semantics Affect Women’s Reports and Men’s Estimates of Orgasm Occurrence 1,3 1 2 1 Talia Shirazi • Kaytlin J. Renfro • Elisabeth Lloyd • Kim Wallen Received: 7 September 2015 / Revised: 16 September 2017 / Accepted: 18 September 2017 Ó Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2017 Abstract Most women report reliably experiencing orgasm were highest in response to assisted intercourse (61–70%), and from masturbation, but a smaller proportion of women report lowest in response to unassisted intercourse (41–50%); in regularly experiencingorgasm from intercourse. Research sug- both conditions, men’s estimates were significantly higher gests that concurrent clitoral stimulation during intercourse than women’s reports. When clitoral stimulation was unspecified, increases the likelihood oforgasm, yet most surveys of orgasm women interpreted‘‘orgasm in intercourse’’in three ways: as from during intercourse leave unspecified whether vaginal intercourse intercoursealone,asincludingconcurrentclitoralstimulation does or does not include concurrent clitoral stimulation (assisted though it was unspecified, or as an average of assisted and intercourse or unassisted intercourse, respectively). Using an unassisted intercourse. Taken together, these results demon- online sample of 1569menand1478women,we testedwhether strate that the phrasing of questions about women’s orgasm phrasing of questions about the occurrence of orgasm in inter- produces markedly different orgasm estimates, and suggest course modulates women’s reported frequency and men’s esti- thatconcurrent clitoral stimulation increases the likelihoodof mates of women’s frequency of orgasm in intercourse. Partici- women experiencing orgasm in intercourse. pantsprovidedestimatesoforgasmwhenaskedexplicitlyabout intercourse with stimulation unspecified, assisted intercourse, Keywords Female orgasm Á Intercourse Á and unassisted intercourse. Women’s reports of orgasm occur- Clitoral stimulation Á Masturbation Á Sex difference rence were highest inresponse toassistedintercourse (51–60%), second highest in response to intercourse with clitoral stimula- tion unspecified (31–40%), and lowest in response to unassisted intercourse (21–30%). Men’s estimates of women’s orgasms The occurrence of orgasm during intercourse differs between men and women with nearly 100% of adult men reporting experiencing orgasm during intercourse, and during most Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s10508-017-1102-6) contains supplementary material, acts of intercourse (Haavio-Mannila & Kontula, 1997; Kin- which is available to authorized users. sey, Pomeroy, & Martin, 1948; Richters, de Visser, Rissel, & Smith, 2006). A much lower and more variable percentage of The name of coauthor Kaytlin J. Renfro has been corrected since this women report ever experiencing orgasm during intercourse, article was originally published. and an even smaller percentage report routinely experiencing & Talia Shirazi orgasm from intercourse by itself (Armstrong, England, & [email protected] Fogarty, 2012; Brewer & Hendrie, 2011; Fisher, 1973; Hite, 1976; Kinsey, Pomeroy, Martin, & Gebhard, 1953;Wallen& 1 Department of Psychology, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, USA Lloyd, 2011). In contrast, there is virtually no sex difference in the occurrenceoforgasm duringmasturbation,with greaterthan 95% 2 Department of History and Philosophy of Science and Medicine, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, USA of men and women reliably experiencing orgasm during mastur- 3 bation (Brewer & Hendrie, 2011;Hite,1976;Kinseyetal.,1953). Department of Anthropology, Pennsylvania State University, A potential explanation for this sex difference in orgasm dur- University Park, 124 South Butz Street, State College, PA 16802, USA ing intercourse, but not during masturbation, is that stimulation 123 Arch Sex Behav during intercourse mirrors the stimulation men most frequently (termed here‘‘assistedintercourse’’), or explicitly excludes additional use during masturbation, but not for women. The overwhelming clitoral glans stimulation (termed here‘‘unassisted intercourse;’’ majority of men report masturbating using penile stimulation Dawood, Kirk, Bailey, Andrews, & Martin, 2005;Kinseyetal., (Kinsey et al., 1953), which is the same stimulation experienced 1953;Levine&Yost,1976; Raboch & Bartak, 1983;Raboch& by men during intercourse. Women most often report masturbat- Raboch,1992;Tavris&Sadd,1977).Ambiguousphrasingofques- ing using direct clitoral glans stimulation (Gebhard, Johnson, & tions has beenidentifiedas asignificantlimitationof research on the Kinsey, 1979;Hite,1976). Less than 5% of women report mastur- nature and variability of women’s orgasm during intercourse bating using vaginal stimulation alone (Carvalheira & Leal, 2013; forseveralreasons(Lloyd,2005).Questionsaboutorgasmdur- Hite, 1976), stimulation that predominates during penile–vaginal ing intercourse, where the specifics of genital stimulation are intercourse. Though it is true that clitoral stimulation is experienced unspecified, do not clarify what types of stimulation are neces- during penile–vaginalintercourse, this clitoral stimulationdiffersin sary for women’s orgasm during intercourse, or how effective several important aspects as compared to the clitoral stimulation different types of stimulation may be. It is furthermore unknown experienced during masturbation. The clitoral complex is com- how women interpret the meaning of‘‘intercourse’’when explicit posed externally of the clitoral glans, and internally of a group of information on clitoral stimulation is not provided. That is, we do structures including the crura, corpora, and bulbs (O’Connell, not know whether the reports women provide in response to sur- Eizenberg, Rahman, & Cleeve, 2005; O’Connell, Hutson, Ander- vey questions on‘‘intercourse’’reflect their experiences of orgasm son, & Plenter, 1998). During penile–vaginal intercourse, it is during all acts of intercourse, during intercourse with concurrent believed that the majority of clitoral stimulation likely results from clitoral stimulation, or during intercourse without concurrent cli- penile stimulation of the internal structures of the clitoris; during toral stimulation. Though it has not been previously explored, it is masturbation, it is typically the external clitoral glans that is stim- possible that the interpretation of ‘‘intercourse,’’where informa- ulated (Carvalheira & Leal, 2013;Hite,1976).Whilesomeclitoral tion on types of stimulation is not present, differs among women. glans stimulation may be experienced indirectly during penile–vagi- That women may be interpreting and responding to the same sur- nal intercourse, it likely differs in magnitude to that experienced vey questions in different manners impairs our ability to draw con- during direct clitoral glans stimulation. clusions based on prior research about the frequency with which It thus follows that the addition of direct clitoral glans stimula- women experience orgasm during intercourse. tion, mirroring the type of stimulation most often used by women Our incomplete understanding of women’s orgasm during during solitary masturbation, during penile–vaginal intercourse intercourse is not solely attributable to ambiguous question phras- could significantly increase women’s frequency and likelihood of ing. Other noteworthy limitations of extant women’s orgasm orgasm. Indeed, the idea that concurrent clitoral stimulation affects researchhighlightedbyLloyd(2005)includethefactthatsamples the likelihood of orgasm during intercourse has been long-acknowl- areoftennon-representativeastheymayberecruitedfromgynecol- edged. Sexologists in the 1970s and 1980s often recommended ogist offices or sex clinics (Levine & Yost, 1976;Raboch& clitoral glans stimulation during intercourse and intercourse posi- Raboch,1992),andthatmanystudieshavereliedonself-report tions likely to increase clitoral stimulation as‘‘treatments’’for anor- throughface-to-faceinterviews(Kinseyetal.,1953;Laumann, gasmic women, where anorgasmia was defined as a lack of orgasm Gagnon, Michael, & Michaels, 1994; Raboch & Bartak, 1983) during intercourse (Eichel, Eichel, & Kule, 1988; LoPiccolo & which may systematically introduce biases in responses (Tour- Lobitz, 1972). The earliest reports of women citing the importance angeau & Yan, 2007). ofconcurrentclitoralstimulationemergedinthe1970saswell,with The present study addressed the ambiguity inherent in previ- between 19 and 25% of women citing such stimulation as neces- ous work on women’s orgasm during intercourse in a large, non-clin- sary for experiencing orgasm during intercourse (Fisher, 1973; ical sample of both men and women. First, we tested whether Hite, 1976). More recently, Wade, Kremer, and Brown (2005) women’s reports of orgasm frequencyvariedwiththewayinwhich surveyed over 800 undergraduate students and found that both the question regarding orgasm during intercourse was phrased. We women and men acknowledged the role of clitoral glans stimu- asked women about their frequency of orgasm during intercourse lation in modulating the likelihood of orgasm during intercourse, first using an ambiguous question that did not specify the presence though the precise frequencies of orgasm during assisted and unas- or absence of clitoral stimulation (‘‘intercourse in general,’’rep- sisted intercourse were not assessed. Qualitative studies have
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