Sex or Socialization? Replicating Heterosexual Couples’ Gender Differences in the Association between Orgasm and Satisfaction in Same-Gender/Sex Couples

ABSTRACT

Orgasm is commonly considered an important aspect of sexual activity. The current study sought to replicate and extend prior work by examining gender/sex differences in the association between orgasm and satisfaction in a sample of same-gender/sex couples. We also examined how desire for an orgasm moderated this association. Although prior research found a curvilinear association between orgasm and satisfaction for heterosexual women (but not men), we found that orgasm curvilinearly predicted relationship and sexual satisfaction across genders/sexes, indicating more frequent orgasm was associated with higher satisfaction only to an extent for all individuals in our sample. We also found that when desire for orgasm was high, orgasm was associated with higher relationship and sexual satisfaction than when desire was low, suggesting that desire for orgasm may differentially affect how orgasm is related to satisfaction. We discuss our findings in terms of sexual scripting theory, contextualizing our results by considering the socially constructed nature of sexuality and how sexual scripts may vary across individuals with different sexual and gender identities.

Acknowledgments

Preparation of this article was supported by a USDA/NIFA HATCH grant (ILLU-793-349) to the last author.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

¹ Sex and gender terms are used interchangeably throughout the existing literature, though the implications of these terms vary. In the current paper, we adopt the use of “gender/sex” to account for the biological and social forces that concurrently shape individuals’ experience of gender and sexuality (for a more detailed explanation on the use of this term, see van Anders, 2015, p. 1181). We discuss gendered implications of sexuality and thus adopt gender terms (i.e., men, women) when referring to our study and results.

² We excluded days on which participants reported they had not engaged in any of the sexual activity variables but had experienced an orgasm. We had a small amount of open-response data from instances where participants selected they had engaged in “other” sexual behaviors and specified what the behavior was (not included in the current conceptualization of sexual activity) that indicated these instances were largely attributable to masturbation. As our interest was in partnered sexual behavior, these open-response data therefore support the exclusion of these cases.

³ See our pre-registered analysis plan here: https://osf.io/89aju/?view_only=761264b003c146e5a642d0157650c057

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the USDA/NIFA HATCH [ILLU-793-349].