Share
Yes. Other interesting study results about the female orgasm below.
Via Jesse Bering‘s excellent book, Why Is the Penis Shaped Like That?: And Other Reflections on Being Human:
Clue #1: Twin-based evidence shows that orgasm frequency has a modest heritable component. Uncomfortable as it may be to think of your flush-faced grandmother moaning in ecstasy, there is a clear genetic contribution to female orgasm. Hereditary factors account for only a third of the population-level variance in female orgasm, however.
Clue #2: Most women report that they are more likely to experience an orgasm while masturbating than during sexual intercourse with a male partner, and importantly, such masturbatory orgasms do not always hinge on simulating penile-vaginal sex. However, as the evolutionary psychologist David Barash notes, “just because something (e.g., female orgasm) can be achieved in diverse ways (e.g., masturbation) does not argue against it having evolved because it is particularly adaptive in a specific, different context (e.g., heterosexual intercourse).”
Clue #3: Educated women are more likely to report having masturbatory orgasms— but are no more likely to experience coital orgasms than are less educated women. Religiosity is another social mediator: religious women tend to have less frequent orgasms than nonreligious ones (or at least they report having fewer).
Clue #4: Using self-report data collected from college-aged American females, researchers such as the psychologist Todd Shackelford and the biologist Randy Thornhill have uncovered a positive correlation between frequency of orgasm and the physical attractiveness of male partners, with attractiveness being measured by subjective ratings as well as by indexes of facial symmetry. Recall that in “genetic fitness” terms, attractiveness tends to correlate positively with health and overall genetic value.
Clue #5: There is some physiological evidence that female orgasm leads to the retention of more and/ or better-quality sperm among a single ejaculate. I don’t think I can put it any better than the psychologists Danielle Cohen and Jay Belsky: “During the female copulatory orgasm the cervix rhythmically dips into the semen pool, thereby increasing sperm retention (by about 5 percent) relative to intercourse without orgasm, along with the probability of conception.” But as Lloyd points out, most references to these classic “data” on the “uterine upsuck” properties of female orgasm derive from a single participant and were part of an old study done back in 1970. Nevertheless, tellingly, a woman’s “desire to conceive” leads to more frequent self-reported orgasms during sex, and female orgasms are also most likely to occur during the most fertile period of the menstrual cycle.
Join 25K+ readers. Get a free weekly update via email here.
Related posts:
8 things you didn’t know about orgasms and sexual satisfaction
10 ways science explains why James Bond is so irresistible to women