When, If, and How: Young Women Contend With Orgasmic Absence

Managing Concealable Sexual Health Stigma Through Disclosure

Individuals with concealable stigma continually decide whether, and if so, how to disclose to others. These complex decision-making processes are evident across various stigmatized sexual health contexts, including sexually transmitted diseases and infections, LGBTQ+ identities, and sexual trauma, among others. One context that has received less attention within communication scholarship is difficulty orgasming among women. Due to the stigma associated with this experience, women are often reluctant to disclose their orgasm difficulties to others, especially their sexual and/or relational partners. However, the motivations women have for, and the factors they consider prior to disclosure have yet to be identified. Building upon extant sexual health communication, concealable stigma, and disclosure research, this study used semi-structured interviews (N = 31) to examine how women disclose orgasm difficulties within their sexual and/or romantic relationships. Our findings highlight several motivations women have for (non)disclosure, and various contextual and situational factors that complicate their disclosure processes. This study contributes to our theoretical understanding of the disclosure processes model (DPM) and the disclosure of concealable (sexual health) stigma. This study also offers practical insights for improving disclosure and experiences with stigma within this context.

Does Clitoral Knowledge Translate into Orgasm? The Interplay Between Clitoral Knowledge, Gendered Sexual Scripts, and Orgasm Experience

Despite some efforts to enhance clitoral knowledge to increase women's sexual pleasure, a gendered orgasm gap persists. We aimed to provide contemporary data on people's knowledge about the clitoris and investigate its association with the experience of sexual pleasure. Heterosexual participants (n = 573; 64.2% women) took a quiz on clitoral knowledge and answered sexuality-related questions. Participants answered only 50% of the nine quiz items correctly. Clitoral knowledge predicted sexual pleasure and orgasm in women, mediated via reduced endorsement of gendered sexual scripts. Our results highlight the importance of clitoral knowledge and its interplay with societal barriers for the experience of pleasure.

Heterosexual Young Adults’ Experience With and Perceptions of the Orgasm Gap: A Mixed Methods Approach

The “orgasm gap” refers to the finding that cisgender men, on average, have more orgasms than cisgender women during heterosexual partnered sex. In the current research, we replicated evidence for several orgasm discrepancies across sexual contexts and assessed men’s and women’s perceptions of the orgasm gap. Our sample consisted of 276 heterosexual, cisgender, sexually active undergraduate students (56.52% women; M age = 18.84). We assessed participants’ self-reported orgasm frequencies with a familiar partner, with a new partner, and during masturbation, as well as participants’ perceptions of their partners’ orgasm frequencies. We found evidence for orgasm discrepancies between young men and women within contexts and for women across contexts. Additionally, men perceived the size of the orgasm gap to be smaller than women perceived it to be. We used qualitative analyses to assess participants’ perceptions of driving forces behind the orgasm gap and their responses could be grouped into five overarching themes: Sociocultural Influence, Women’s Orgasm Difficulty, Biology, Men’s Fault, and Interpersonal Communication. This qualitative data can inform education and advocacy efforts focused on improving orgasm outcomes for young women, particularly by disproving prominent biological justifications for orgasm difference and addressing relevant sociocultural concerns. Additional online materials for this article are available on PWQ’s website at http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/suppl/10.1177/03616843221076410 .

The Development and Validation of the Orgasm Beliefs Inventory

While orgasm is often conceptualized as a physiological reflex, research has also shown it to be symbolic and to be attributed significant meaning. However, in the absence of a comprehensive measure assessing cultural orgasm scripts and beliefs, the extent to which individuals personally endorse them is unknown. Grounded in sexual script theory, the present research aimed to develop and validate a measure assessing cultural orgasm beliefs, and to investigate gender differences in their endorsement using the new measure. In Study 1, an MTurk sample (N = 448) completed a preliminary version of the Orgasm Beliefs Inventory (OBI). Exploratory factor analyses revealed 11 orgasm beliefs that could be grouped into seven broad categories (Men's Orgasms are Easy/Women's Orgasms are Difficult, Partner Interest Fosters Orgasm, Orgasm is Essential to Men's Sexual Satisfaction, Orgasm as a Relational Quality Benchmark, Orgasm is Unessential to Women's Sexual Satisfaction, Simultaneous Orgasm is Ideal, and Orgasm Requires and Fosters Connection). In Study 2, the OBI was completed by 392 participants. Confirmatory factor analysis was conducted and supported a slightly different 7-factor model. The Sexual Dysfunctional Beliefs Questionnaire, Sexual Scripts Scale, and Types of Jealousy Scales were also completed concurrently with the OBI and yielded results in support of the OBI's convergent and discriminant validity. Compared to women, men scored lower on Men's Orgasms are Easy/Women's Orgasms are Difficult, but higher on Orgasm Absence Reflects Relationship Problems. No other gender differences were found on OBI subscale scores. The OBI is a new measure that can be used in future sexual scripts research to explore the relationships between orgasm beliefs and other sexual outcomes and behaviors (e.g., faking orgasm, sexual communication and assertiveness, sexual function and satisfaction, etc.).

“Damned if you do, damned if you don’t”: Women’s accounts of feigning sexual pleasure

Faking orgasm has been identified as a common practice among women and feminist scholars have probed the connections between the socio-cultural meanings associated with faking and heterosex. Expanding on this line of inquiry, feigning sexual pleasure was explored in interviews with 14 women who reported having sex with men. Using a feminist critical discourse analytic approach, we attend to the dilemma that was frequently evoked in women’s accounts. Participants explained that feigning sexual pleasure was done in order to protect their partners’ ego. However, participants also talked about faking orgasm as being problematic in the sense that it was “deceitful” and “dishonest”. These contrasting discursive patterns created a dilemma whereby faking was situated as “necessary” but “dishonest”. As a way of negotiating this dilemma, participants made a distinction between exaggerating sexual pleasure and faking orgasm. We posit that exaggeration can be interpreted as a form of material (during the sexual encounter) and discursive (during accounting of the encounter) disruption of dominant discourses of heterosex such as the orgasmic imperative. Drawing on Annamarie Jagose’s and Hannah Frith’s problematizations of the prevailing tendency to position orgasm as either “authentic” or “fake”, we discuss women’s negotiation of the limited constructions of “real” pleasure.

What Does Research Tell Us About Women's Experiences, Motives and Perceptions of Masturbation Within a Relationship Context?: A Systematic Review of Qualitative Studies

This systematic review provides an overview of what qualitative research has revealed about partner-related factors around women's masturbation and explores how these factors relate to women's behavior, perceptions, and motives toward masturbation. Eleven studies were identified and secondary thematic analysis was used for synthesis. Women's perceptions often focus on the (potential) negative influences of masturbation on current or future relationships. Motivations some women reported for masturbating due to partner-related factors were diverse. Findings suggested that some women modify their masturbation behavior when in a relationship. The implications of these findings for sexual health educators and clinicians are discussed.

The Impact of Coercive Control on Use of Specific Sexual Coercion Tactics

There is substantial evidence that women experience unwanted sex under nonviolent duress from partners. This study examined the relationship between coercive control and sexual coercion in heterosexual couples. Among a sample of 136 men arrested for domestic violence, extent of coercive control was used to predict the likelihood of using eight specific sexual coercion tactics. Findings indicated that coercive control predicted significantly greater likelihood of using covert tactics, but not physically violent or overtly aggressive tactics. The tactics that demonstrated the strongest relationship with coercive control seem indicative of a toxic relational environment that may subtly erode victim autonomy and sense of self over time. Implications discuss how use of more covert and insidious tactics maintain invisibility, isolation, blame, and perceived complicitness of victims in clinical, legal, and social settings.

Pornography and women’s sexual pleasure: Accounts from young women in Australia

Understanding how young women experience pornography is a modern imperative in promoting sexual health. There has been, until now, no Australian research exploring what pornography means to women in relation to sexual pleasure. We conducted in-depth interviews with 27 women from around Australia. A thematic analysis of their accounts, supported by narrative theory, revealed that pornography both enhanced and interfered with pleasure. Women described pornography’s contributions to the enhancement of pleasure through solo pleasure, shared viewing with partners, discovering new sexual preferences, and reassurance about body appearance. Pornography was constructed as interfering with pleasure through its misrepresentation (of bodies, sexual acts, and expression of pleasure), women’s concern for actors’ wellbeing, and its disruption of intimacy. Accounts were consistent with women’s place in a culture that subordinates female pleasure to male pleasure. It was evident in women’s accounts that pornography plays complex, dynamic roles in the production of pleasure, acting in the domains of physiology, psychology, relationships, ethics, society, and culture.