“Sexual Practices and Last Heterosexual Encounter and Occurrence of Orgasm in a National Survey”

     In heterosexual encounters, women are less likely to reach orgasm than men. This has long been seen as a problem in thesexological literature Much of the research on female difficulties with orgasm or with heterosexual sex in general has focused more on indirect causes, such as upbringing, attitudes, religion, marital adjustment, anxiety, previous traumatic experiences, or the woman's relationship with her father or other figures rather than proximal causes, such as the form of stimulation received. (217)

              

       The finding is in line with data from the Australian Study of Health and Relationships indicating that people who said they had sex often were more likely both to report their regular heterosexual relationship as extremely emotionally satisfying and to find the sex in their relationship extremely physically pleasurable.Satisfaction was directly connected to sxual assertiveness, frequent sex, using many techniques in sexual encounters, and orgasm. For women, it was also connected to  young age, and for men, considering sexuality important in life, reciprocal love, and using sex materials. (218)

      For men, the likelihood of orgasm was not strongly influenced by the number of sexual practices, probably because of the high proportion of men having orgasms from a single practice, usually vaginal intercourse. For women, the results were different and suggested that it is only when practices such as oral and manual stimulation are added to vaginal intercourse that women become more likely to have an orgasm. (220)This suggests that women may be more likely to count activities as sex when they do not include intercourse, though such a suggestion is not supported by other research.(222)The heavy concentration on a few of the many possible combinations of the six practices we did ask about suggests that a fairly limited “script” for sex is well-established. (223)

Demographic and relationship characteristics were associated with orgasm, but the differences were not as dramatic as the associations with gender and with sexual practice. The associations between orgasm and demographic characteristics suggest a social class effect, with better-educated, non-immigrant women more likely to have orgasms. (224)

       Although women were more likely to reach orgasm when the encounter included manual and oral sex, their orgasms did not necessarily occur during these practices.(224)One possible explanation of the discrepancy between male and femal experience of orgasmin in partnered encounters is that men want sex more often than women, with the result that in established couples, some of the sexual interactions are what women popularly call “mercy fucks” or “freebies”.(224)

It is hard to escape the conclusion that when men is keen to have sex but the woman is not, intercourse ensues and the man reaches orgasm, but when the women is keen but the men is not, sex rarely happens.(224 - 225)Another possible explanation for the discrepancy between male and female experience of orgasm in partnered encounters is that women are intrinsically less keen on sex than men and/or less physiologically capable of reaching orgasm.(225)Manual and oral sex provide the direct stimulation for many women that makes orgasm more likely, though still less likely than for men.All of these comparisons make the naive assumption that orgasms are qualitatively all the same and can simply be counted, and that more is better.Considerable effort has been expended on the “sex problem” of women: they appear to be less interested in sex than men, they report more problems, and they are less likely to reach orgasm in partnered sex. (225)

       The proximal cause - the sexual stimulation delivered to women in the typical, rigidly-scripted heterosexual interaction- has more to do with whether they reach orgasm( as we suspect, enjoy sex) than with more obscure and distant causes. Most demographic and sexual history variables, apart from young age and non-English-speaking background, were comparatively weakly associated with orgasm. It is likely than insofar as such factors affect the likelihood of orgasm, they do so partly or even largely through the mechanism of sexual practices.(225)