The Relationship Between Sexual Concordance and Orgasm Consistency in Women

Abstract

Sexual concordance (the relationship between genital and self-reported sexual responses) may be associated with orgasm consistency (OC; the proportion of sexual acts leading to orgasm) during penile–vaginal intercourse (PVI) in women. We investigated the relationship between women’s sexual concordance (assessed using different stimulus modalities and self-reported sexual arousal methods) and OC during various sexual activities (assessed using different types of questions). For Study 1 (n = 51), when sexual concordance was assessed using audiovisual sexual stimuli, we did not find a statistically significant relationship between OC and poststimulus self-reports of sexual arousal or genital sensations, raw values of OC, or ranges of OC. For Study 2 (n = 44), where sexual concordance was assessed using audionarrative sexual stimuli, we did find a statistically significant relationship between PVI OC and sexual concordance using change in self-reported sexual arousal, and ranges of orgasm consistency. Two findings were inconsistent with previous research. First, OC varied significantly by activity type in both studies; masturbation yielded the highest OC. Second, PVI OC was significantly related to oral sex and masturbation OC (Study 2). We discuss the need for further research and various factors that may affect women’s orgasm consistency and sexual concordance.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We thank Martin Lalumière for his comments on earlier versions of the manuscript and assistance in developing the research questions.

Notes

¹ The degrees of freedom for sexual concordance scores reflect the number of observations per participant (i.e., eight pairs of points in Study 1 and 12 pairs of points in Study 2), not the sample size.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (postdoctoral fellowship awarded to K. Suschinsky, postdoctoral fellowship awarded to M. Chivers); Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (grant awarded to M. Lalumière); Council of Ontario Universities (Women’s Health Scholars Postdoctoral Award awarded to M. Chivers); Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (doctoral fellowship awarded to K. Suschinsky).