What makes it easy or hard for a woman to reach orgasm?
We know about a third of the variation in female orgasmic ability and frequency is influenced by genetic factors – which leaves about 70% of the variation unexplained.
So what could account for the variation between different women in the ease with which they reach orgasm?
This is a very interesting area, because the actual function of the female orgasm is still unknown. It’s not necessary for reproduction, whereas the male orgasm, and the ejaculation mechanism which is so closely associated with it, is very clearly necessary for human reproduction.
So why, in short, do women come? Is it a remnant of biological evolution and sexual differentiation, in other words something that happened simply because the woman has nerve pathways which resemble those of the human male? Or is it something to do with reinforcing the pair bond between men and women? (In other words, the experience of orgasm with another person bonds one emotionally to that person?)
And there’s another theory which suggests the female orgasm is about sucking semen into the uterus, to make fertilization more likely.
During orgasm, the woman’s cervix dips into the pool of semen left in the vagina (assuming intercourse has taken place), although the difference between the amount of semen retained during orgasmic intercourse compared to non-orgasmic intercourse is only about 5% greater. This hardly seems significant enough to be an indication that female orgasm is designed to increase the success of human reproduction!
However, women who have intercourse with men who have traits which are thought to represent good quality genes reach orgasm more (oddly enough, one of these is what’s known as bilateral symmetry, in other words the left and right hand side of the face and body are more similar than is usual). Would a man who was “more genetically successful” be more likely to want to take the effort to discover how to make his woman come, perhaps?
Despite this remarkable finding, the reproductive-success theory of female orgasm seems a far-fetched suggestion. Could nature, good old Mother Nature, really be acting in such a subtle level?
Some scientists don’t think so, because they’ve suggested that the female orgasm is like the male nipple – something which has no purpose whatsoever, and is simply a result of nerve pathways forming before the differentiation of the fetus into either male or female form. According to this theory, stimulation of the clitoris, resulting in a woman’s ability to reach orgasm, is merely a remnant of redundant neural connections.
Emotional Aspects Of Women’s Orgasms
We know that a woman’s ability to come, to reach orgasm, or indeed for a man to give her an orgasm, is highly dependent on the level of emotional intimacy with her partner, her previous sexual experiences (whether positive or negative), and her level of satisfaction with the relationship she is in. For example, trust is an important factor in whether or not a man can make a woman come.
All these emotional and psychological factors, may point us towards something known as attachment theory: an aspect of personality closely associated with the frequency with which a woman reaches orgasm.
Attachment theory tries to explain how we develop interpersonal bonds as a result of childhood experiences, but it also tells us something about how a person’s able to control and regulate their own emotions.
Insecure and avoidant attachments are caused by parents who don’t support and bond well with their children. The child may be anxious about abandonment, and then decides at some unconscious level to avoid emotional attachment so as to avoid the pain this may potentially cause. In adulthood, this can produce a state of mind where an individual suppresses his desire to be close to others, and this in turn can lead to a child distancing himself from other people.
There is another form of insecure attachment which is called insecure resistant attachment, which involves a child recognizing that she’s not going to get emotional care unless she shows major problems, which leads to her exaggerating her distress. The object here, of course, is to evoke care and comfort.
Lucky is the child indeed, who receives good and consistent care from parents or caregivers, because that child develops secure attachments, which in adulthood will lead to a balanced and open expression of the natural range of human emotion.
Although we don’t need to explore attachment theory in depth, it’s clear that these are profound aspects of personality which could be closely related to an individual’s ability to form relationships and enjoy sexual experiences in adult hood.
Anxiety and avoidance are different dimensions of attachment: anxiety is all about how much an individual fears abandonment and rejection, and the avoidance dimension reflects how an individual feels uncomfortable or comfortable with feelings or experience of trust, dependency and psychological closeness.
Obviously a secure attachment is linked to long and satisfying relationships which are emotionally stable and characterized by high investment of self in the relationship, mutual trust and ongoing friendship.
It turns out that people who learned to attach securely in childhood are more open sexual exploration, enjoy sex more, feel better after sex, and are able to enjoy sex in a long-term relationship more easily than people who are insecurely attached.
Insecurely attached people seem to engage in promiscuous sexual behaviour, have more sexual experiences at an earlier age, more partners, and experience more infidelity. No doubt they also are less easily brought to orgasm and their partners find it harder to give them an orgasm.
And people who experience anxiety in their attachments can be quite needy and obsessive in their requirement for love and attachment, and often prefer hugging and physical intimacy rather than sexual intercourse.
Even so, anxious women seem to have sexual intercourse to establish a feeling of intense closeness with a partner, which can reduce their sense of insecurity.
There’s a lot more information available about attachment behavior, relationships and sexuality.
One interesting finding is that the more insecurely attached a woman is, the less she is likely to experience orgasm. That seems to be in part because most women’s orgasmic responsiveness involved emotional intimacy and a satisfying relationship with another person.
In addition to these findings, research has demonstrated that orgasm frequency among women is directly related to age, a higher body mass index, being in a long-term relationship, and demonstrating secure attachment style.
It’s hardly surprising, I think, that people who demonstrate avoidant romantic attachment behavior also experience lower levels of orgasm. Avoidant behaviour is related to lower enjoyment of physical sex, less intimacy and satisfaction in relationships, and having relationships of shorter duration.
The researchers did make clear the fact that they wanted to distinguish between orgasms during intercourse and orgasms during other forms of sexual activity.
It turned out that women with high levels of attachment avoidance have sex to avoid emotional intimacy, whereas women with anxiety attachment issues have sex to establish closeness and reassure themselves about feeling connected to another person.
It’s hardly surprising that our childhood experiences of attachment will affect the way we behave in adulthood, and indeed control the frequency with which we come together to establish relationships, enjoy sex, produce children, and experience parenting our own children.